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A Current Workflow to Rebuild Image of Dancers on a Dimly Lit Stage

Asher Kelman said:
Which book or guide? Have you spent similar effort with DXO or Capture One 6.1. The latter bursting with new features as Bart has touched here

The guide is always he same... it's Derrick Story's "Photoshop companion for Photographers", a no nonsense guide meant to help the photographers to tackle most of their problems with ACR, and leave the minimum to Photoshop.

The photoshop chapters were a bit useless for me, but the rest is a marvelous approach to the DAM with Bridge and the corrections with ACR. It helped me a lot, because I was pretty lazy with sorting my images, and it makes things a lot easier just following the steps. In addition the book is pretty small and you can put it in your handbag (for the ladies) and read it anywhere. It's a reference.

I have neither DxO nor capture one. I just spent a bit part of my money on Photoshop, and that's all...I could also have bought Nikon capture or whatever...But as I don't have a DSLR (no, father Christmas haven't been kind to me, I was on the naughty list), I don't feel the necessity to buy this. The day I'll make a decent money out of these so-called skills, I'll maybe making some investments.


Oops! Doug Kerr might still let you in! Besides, he's a pretty good lone sailor! Look at his sheer breadth of contributions here. He loves people but knows how to read the stars and navigate alone and lead the way for others.

I've been said that women were not allowed on ships anyway. He might be the guy to breed (it's an image) with my husband. Making statistics out of everything (eg. the number of grey Porshe cayenne per mile during the portion from Brighton to Chichester according the day and the time of day, or how many players left our Poker league after 2 attendances in the past 2 years, and the percentage of them are 1-women, 2-first time winners 3-Internet players...etc). It's borderline to OCD to me... We plan, if we can to visit Bletchley park, so you know what kind of amusements are awaiting. (I don't bother anyway, I am just moaning by habit)

Alan Turing a milestone....
and
Bletchey park
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Bonjour OPFers!
As some of you may have noticed, this year have been devoted ot work and I've been quite away from OPF…
But asher is a good captain and the ship is sailing wel with good crew.

I've been fortunately enough to see clients coming back, asking for more and more and even some more clients as well in the architecture field.
Some of these works can be seen on my website.

So, below is my Christmas contribution!

The raw file (sent by Asher) was PPed in C1 6.01.

The only thing I've done in CS is a more in depth denoise using Dfine (Nik software) in CS4 and a very sligth deconvolution with Topaz Infocus (CS5).
Then a very slight quick and dirty clean of the girl at left chick's (around the ear).
No layers, no masking.

The starting point was to establish a white balance that could be believable…
The top of shirt of the girl on the right was chosen as primary neutral, then I warmed all with the Kelvin cursor…

Additional saturation and color works have been done after this.

Curve has been used and other settings as well, Asher has got all details in an eip file (C1 proprietary DNG)…

Happy new year to you all!

_MG_1361_NC_Srgb_1024pix.jpg


Asher Kelman: Dancers: Nicolas' Claris' Version E: Phase One's Capture One 6.1

Capture One 6.1, WB from lead dancer's shirt, then CS4 with Dfine and CS5 with Topaz Infocus.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Bonjour OPFers!
As some of you may have noticed, this year have been devoted ot work and I've been quite away from OPF…

I noticed and each and every day! Still, you were here as I would think, "now what would my Bordeaux friend Nicolas think of this?".

But asher is a good captain and the ship is sailing well with good crew.

On se débrouille seulement! Mais on s'amuse toujours!

I've been fortunately enough to see clients coming back, asking for more and more and even some more clients as well in the architecture field.

Thank goodness, the cycles are in your favor! I hope you didn't have to drop your prices!

Some of these works can be seen on my website.

We'll explore and catch up!

So, below is my Christmas contribution!

The raw file (sent by Asher) was PPed in C1 6.01.

Thanks so much, I'm about to download it and study it with a good color profiled Eizo monitor. I know that there's no one on the planet more fastidious about color! Already, this is the most significant contribution. The center girl has two different hues to her dress. If that's indeed true, this is an amazing C1 process.

The only thing I've done in CS is a more in depth denoise using Dfine (Nik software) in CS4 and a very sligth deconvolution with Topaz Infocus (CS5).
Then a very slight quick and dirty clean of the girl at left chick's (around the ear).
No layers, no masking.
Selection IS masking but one does not see the mask, still, I know what you mean and that's great. I was impressed already when Ben pushed me to not use layers and have an ACR only workflow.

Happy new year to you all!

To you and all your loved one's. I expect to see new movies from Romain this year!

_MG_1361_NC_Srgb_1024pix.jpg


Asher Kelman: Dancers: Nicolas' Claris' Version E: Phase One's Capture One 6.1

Capture One 6.1, WB from lead dancer's shirt, then CS4 with Dfine and CS5 with Topaz Infocus.
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Hi
please read in blue
I noticed and each and every day! Still, you were here as I would think, "now what would my Bordeaux friend Nicolas think of this?".

On se débrouille seulement! Mais on s'amuse toujours!

A way of life! ;-)

Thank goodness, the cycles are in your favor! I hope you didn't have to drop your prices!

Nope, increased by an average of 20%
Dropping prices is NEVER the right solution, increase quality and service for the same price if you cannot raise it, but don't lower! Never!.


We'll explore and catch up!

http://www.claris.fr/photo_uk.php

Thanks so much, I'm about to download it and study it with a good color profiled Eizo monitor. I know that there's no one on the planet more fastidious about color! Already, this is the most significant contribution. The center girl has two different hues to her dress.

Actually the different hues can be seen on the 3 girl's back.
As far as I can guess, it should come from a yellow strong lighting coming from the left of the stage


If that's indeed true, this is an amazing C1 process.

You alone can tell (or the choregrapher) you were there, not us!

Selection IS masking but one does not see the mask, still, I know what you mean and that's great. I was impressed already when Ben pushed me to not use layers and have an ACR only workflow.

Of course, but only selections were by color, in C1 "advanced color" tab

To you and all your loved one's. I expect to see new movies from Romain this year!

http://www.romainclarisfilm.com/index_uk.php

You may also check our video gallery: http://www.claris.fr/video_uk.php
Videos can be seen on any computer, iPhones and Ipads (thanks to Sébastien our webmaster) they are hosted on our web server (OVH.com), no youtube nor dailymotion hosting.
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Well, today is layday… so I gave a try to ACR (6.2 in CS5)

Started as always with the white balance and got this result:

_MG_1361_NC_ACR_1024.jpg



Asher Kelman: Dancers: Nicolas' Claris' Version F: ACR (6.2 in CS5)


Not very far from the C1 version, at full res, I do prefer the C1 version though…
Not much done in CS5 (denoise and deconvolution sharpening)
For those interested in the settings, here is the xmp file zipped to download:
http://mnclaris.free.fr/forum/_MG_1361-xmp.zip
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Wow, Nicolas!

An unexpected gift for New Year's Day! I have to wait a few days before trying your process. I need to upgrade to CS5. The fun is going to be examining the details at 100% and seeing how they print. Ill have to show the images to the ballerina's to confirm where the real colors are. Yours are for sure the richest!

Thanks so much,

Asher
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Yours are for sure the richest!

Hmmm again…
I just revealed what you caught!
BTW did you shoot auto white Bal ? White balance of the file was quite far from what I can imagine the reality was…

Anyway, an interesting pic, shot at 3200 ISO, to work on!

Have you tried some shots from a lower position, with a wide lens to "make" the ballerinas even taller with panache?
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hmmm again…
I just revealed what you caught!
BTW did you shoot auto white Bal ? White balance of the file was quite far from what I can imagine the reality was…

Anyway, an interesting pic, shot at 3200 ISO, to work on!

Have you tried some shots from a lower position, with a wide lens to "make" the ballerinas even taller with panache?
The Dance Department gives opportunity for experimentation during the performance. Shooting is always from above. However, I might get below them, closer to the stage this next time in the dress rehearsal. I tried to shoot a second camera via a Pocket Wizard, but the delay misses peak moments. I guess I should use two channels and watch via my accessory LCD screen and fire off the second camera.

Thank you again for helping start our New Year on a positive note!

Asher
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
I tried to shoot a second camera via a Pocket Wizard, but the delay misses peak moments. I guess I should use two channels and watch via my accessory LCD screen and fire off the second camera.

with C1, use your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch to wirelessly view, zoom and pan high resolution DSLR and medium format RAW images while you shoot and get instant feedback !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up-wxsKt6is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es1L0wqo9U0



More features
Hey! I have no financial links with Phase One!
 

Alain Briot

pro member
Provided you shoot tethered to a computer. In the field there's still no practical way of doing that without a laptop unfortunately.
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Hi All,

Sorry it took me a while to finally post my own trial at this. This one was converted into a tif file using DxO version 6.5.2. I have used the multiple color balance tool to preserve the shades of the spotlights (yellow and blue) and achieve a skin tone as neutral as possible. I also did the same conversion using Capture One Pro 6 and LR3 but the noise reduction of DxO gave the best results for this picture. After that, I have done the editing in CS5. Editing consisted of using layers/mask to selectively reduce the noise using the Topaz Labs Denoise5. I have spent time to neutralize the curtain (it contained a lot of color noise and banding). I have then added some local contrast adjustment and curves and saturation adjustments. Finally, used LR3 to resize for web and sharpen for output.


_MG_1361.jpg


Asher Kelman: Dancers: Cem Usakligil Version G: DXO

DXO, version 6.52 for translation from RAW and skin color adjustment, preserving value of spotlights, Substantial edits then in
CS5 with masked Topaz Denoise layers and then local contrast, curves & saturation adjustments. LR3 resize for web and sharpen!





Cheers,

 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Cem,

An immediate thanks and bear hug from me! You did a lot of work and it's so appreciated. I'd never have considered DXO! How the color tool keeps the spotlights but corrects the skin must be complex but I can see I would need a WB card before the color lights were switched on to achieve that with WB alone.

I need to first understand Nicolas' work as there are two versions and then compare all the results. These are interesting differences!

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Cem, Nicolas, Sandrine and Ben and anyone who looked at this but didn't show it, thanks for your help. I have all the files now. I'll complete some pics to be delivered and then study and comment in detail on the good work you have all done.

Thanks for being patient!

Asher
 

Mike Shimwell

New member
Cem, Nicolas, Sandrine and Ben and anyone who looked at this but didn't show it, thanks for your help. I have all the files now. I'll complete some pics to be delivered and then study and comment in detail on the good work you have all done.

Thanks for being patient!

Asher

Asher,

I did download you file and have a play in LR3, but couldn't get anywhere with it that was adding much value to be honest. I was surprised by the oise level in the file given the very high reputation of the canon, but there again it was very underexposed.

At the time I thouht that DXo would do a better job than LR3 with it, but I don't have a copy on my current machine yet. I must get around to downloading it again. However, Cem's remarkable and admirable work left me thinking that there was nothing I could add. It is exemplary and if anyone else has the chance to look at his layers file that's also a valuable resource.

Nicolas' work added a further and different dimension to this and one that is well worth comparing to Cem's as an example of how diferent an image can look with different raw conversion.

Mike
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Hi Doug,
...A lovely result.
Thanks.

...I do miss, however, the recovery of the ringlets of the hair of the rightmost dancer as we saw in some of Asher's results.
Indeed. I can tell you that the SNR in the hair of the rightmost dancer is so low that bringing out any ringlets results in generating false/random information. One could do it but one could also clone some hair from another source for better looking results. Mine was a conscious choice to eventually leave it at that.

Cheers,
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Cem,

Hi Doug,

Thanks.

Indeed. I can tell you that the SNR in the hair of the rightmost dancer is so low that bringing out any ringlets results in generating false/random information.
Yes, so it seemed in the one workup where they were emphasized.

Best regards,

Doug
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hi Doug,

Thanks.

Indeed. I can tell you that the SNR in the hair of the rightmost dancer is so low that bringing out any ringlets results in generating false/random information. One could do it but one could also clone some hair from another source for better looking results. Mine was a conscious choice to eventually leave it at that.

Cheers,

Well, Cem, you are at least partly correct. There's faint ringlets in post #5 that that seem very real and separate from the dark background. And then the obvious noise fits in nicely to enhance it. That's what I believe after studying it. Of course there are billions of follows of one way of life exclusive paths to heaven and they all can't be right. Mine is just a reasonable observation but not rigidly proven.

Asher
 
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