I'm just a bit curious.
After fooling around with some photos, a question popped in my mind.
When you take a picture, do you try and capture or show it as you actually see it at depth OR do you try and colour correct to show the colours how it would be on land?
alcina
October 3rd, 2006, 12:49 AM
Ahh, an age old question, grasshopper.
What is reality? What you "see" underwater is your brain playing tricks on you...
Can't wait to see the answers to this one.
I'd guess most try to show what it would look like if the sun's light wasn't sucked up by the water...most of the time. That's why strobe temperatures can be a factor in deciding which strobe to buy (not for me, far too involved) and/or in post processing an image/setting white balance.
ChrisA
October 3rd, 2006, 01:16 AM
I'm just a bit curious.
After fooling around with some photos, a question popped in my mind.
When you take a picture, do you try and capture or show it as you actually see it at depth OR do you try and colour correct to show the colours how it would be on land?
Have you ever read any books by Ansel Adams? One might think black and white landscpes on film have little to do with UW digital. But not so. The reason he did most of his work in black and white was because he could extensively post process the film and prints in the darkroom. Most of his prints did not represent reality. In fact many of them looked completely different then what a "photo realistic" image would be. His intent he wrote, was to make an image that conveys what he felt when he was there rather then what he saw. His opinion was than exact representation is not "art".
I have to agree with Adams. I will manipulate an image to make it communicate something. I try not to make the image un-true but I will darken some areas to make the subject appear brighter, I'll de-saturate a background to make a subject appear more colorful. When you are cruising along a wall and discover a Nudibrach your eye restores the color and edits out parts of the rock you are not interested in. I'll help the viewer to see the way I did
rjsimp
October 3rd, 2006, 08:43 AM
I'm just a bit curious.
After fooling around with some photos, a question popped in my mind.
When you take a picture, do you try and capture or show it as you actually see it at depth OR do you try and colour correct to show the colours how it would be on land?
I guess this really comes down to WHY you take pictures.. Do you take them to remind you of what you saw and the way things looked while you were diving, or do you take them to see things that you couldn't see or better said, how they really are.
I personally take them to see the colors and textures the way they really are. I discover new things all the time in my pictures that I would not have ever been able to see while on the dive or when reviewing pictures that were "blue monochrome". In fact, I can look at my pictures and it is amazing how many new things I discover each time that I didn't see before just because the way the light hit something or the color contrast created with a strobe.
So, there you have it.. both sides of the fence and the side I fall on.. :D
Fastmarc
October 3rd, 2006, 11:08 AM
Howarde provided a link that shows how to correct a photo that was taken without any strobe, but when I showed a none diving friend the sample from the link, he commented that it didn't look like underwater. Hmmm....
I guess I too might fall on both sides of the fence. On one hand when I take those close-ups, I want to see the objects as they really are, but there are some shots that I want to remain close to what I see, so as to kinda pass on my experience, especially to my non-diving friends.
fairybasslet
October 3rd, 2006, 11:39 AM
Can you supply Howarde's link?
I also never know how to correct photos. Maybe that's why they just sit there in my computer until Alcina posts a theme of the week.:D
Fastmarc
October 3rd, 2006, 11:54 AM
Take a look in this (http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=161031) thread.
fairybasslet
October 3rd, 2006, 01:03 PM
Take a look in this (http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=161031) thread.Grazie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:D
cpe111
October 3rd, 2006, 03:39 PM
I take all my pictures in RAW format with, what i think is the correct WB and then adjust later if necessary.
rjsimp
October 3rd, 2006, 05:30 PM
Fastmarc,
I guess it depends on the subject and what you are going for..
In this case, I wanted natural light and I DON'T want to white balance. This is becasue I wanted the blue on this subject.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c80/rjsimp/Cayman092006/picture-8.jpg
However, in this case, it wouldn't look very good and be kind of a boring picture if everything was blue. Not that it is real exciting anyhow but at least there is some color and variation to it. I was shooting a reference shot to show the blenny that I later came back and did a macro on.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c80/rjsimp/Cayman092006/_DSC0773.jpg
Okay, I decided to upload this picture.. Not really a favorite of mine, but shows you where I would "fix" a picture. I think this one really looks better having the white balance set.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c80/rjsimp/Cayman092006/NotWhiteBalanced.jpghttp://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c80/rjsimp/Cayman092006/WhiteBalanced.jpg
So, there are no hard fast rules I guess.. but it really depends on the subject and what you are trying to do with the shot.
mikerault
October 3rd, 2006, 05:48 PM
With or without strobe at times you will get photos that just aren't what you "saw". I show some examples at:
You don't see the backscatter until it hapens, and yes it does happen even with strobes.
Should you adjust for levels, colors and such? Yes. I'll bet you can't show me one photo in any magazine that hasn't been color adjusted, leveled, cropped, burned, dodged or otherwise manipulated.
Maybe if you are in 10 feet of water, 100+ feet of vis with sun directly overhead you will get what you see, unfortunately that isn't were the most interesting shots usually occur.
Mike
Fastmarc
October 3rd, 2006, 05:55 PM
I see what you mean Rich. That makes sense.
rjsimp
October 3rd, 2006, 06:19 PM
I couldn't resist. Fastmarc has me going through some pictures and so I was playing around. In this case, I white balanced the ship, but only the front portion of the picture and left the distant part the natural blue. This has a little in there for everyone! :D
It is totally a subjective thing. I don't like the color balanced version Rich posted on page one at all - looks forced to me.
Do what looks good to YOU. You'll never please everyone and the most important person is you :) Ask anyone who has published or entered a competition - sometimes it's unbelievable what an editor, judge or people (like in popular voting) will pick as a favourite. Heck look around here when people post - some that one person likes probably leaves another cold.
Have fun!
Fastmarc
October 3rd, 2006, 06:38 PM
Shoot, now I'm gonna spend the whole night fooling with pics.
rjsimp
October 3rd, 2006, 06:47 PM
It is totally a subjective thing. I don't like the color balanced version Rich posted on page one at all - looks forced to me.
Do what looks good to YOU. You'll never please everyone and the most important person is you :) Ask anyone who has published or entered a competition - sometimes it's unbelievable what an editor, judge or people (like in popular voting) will pick as a favourite. Heck look around here when people post - some that one person likes probably leaves another cold.
Have fun!
Well.. come now.. it was forced to show a point :D Not a very good picture to begin with, but I was trying to find one that didn't have strobe in it so I could do a true white balance. Of course, once you do a white balance, that's what you get.
Anyhow, I don't like a bunch of cyan in a "blue scale" picture unless it works because the subject allows it. For example the one you didn't like, if that was darker and a silhouette of sorts, then I would think it would look great as a "blue scale" picture. That was the real focus of that post as I already know people like it one way or the other.. Like I said.. two sides of the fence. Just let me hop to the other side once in a while.. :D
fairybasslet
October 3rd, 2006, 06:58 PM
It is totally a subjective thing. I don't like the color balanced version Rich posted on page one at all - looks forced to me.
Do what looks good to YOU. You'll never please everyone and the most important person is you :) Ask anyone who has published or entered a competition - sometimes it's unbelievable what an editor, judge or people (like in popular voting) will pick as a favourite. Heck look around here when people post - some that one person likes probably leaves another cold.
Have fun!
Which one are you talking about Alcina? You said first page but I only have one page of posts. But I do seem to like his white balanced ones better. I guess it is just so subjective, like you said.
Jamdiver
October 3rd, 2006, 07:15 PM
Shoot, now I'm gonna spend the whole night fooling with pics.
Fun, Fun, fun :D.
If you've got the time and or a broadband connection (DSL) head on over to radiantvista (http://www.scubaboard.com/www.radiantvista.com) and check out their video tutorials or tutorials in text (pdf format) on getting the most out of photoshop!
I've found it invaluable...
Digital diver also has a really helpful file on using the levels tool in photoshop and getting that blue/cyan colour cast out of photos..
It is totally a subjective thing. I don't like the color balanced version Rich posted on page one at all - looks forced to me.(Not specific to Rich's image). I often find that color corrected photos look artificial. A simple solution is to reduce the opacity of the color corrected layer a bit to let back in some of the uncorrected blue photo.
Similarly, I'll sometimes try two or three different methods of color correction, and then blend them back together, sometimes using luminosity from the one with the best contrast, and color from another style of correction.
As you say, it's subjective.
Fastmarc
October 4th, 2006, 12:39 AM
Great, more stuff to keep me awake and playing.
Thanks Jam.:D
alcina
October 4th, 2006, 12:47 AM
Sorry, post #10, the last shot with the black coral tree. I realise it was an illustration and I think it does a perfect job!
Working with the opacity layer is a good trick!
Fooling with things til you find something that you like on a particular image is the way to go - but it can suddenly suck several hours out of your day LOL
BurBunny
October 4th, 2006, 02:37 AM
It is totally a subjective thing. I don't like the color balanced version Rich posted on page one at all - looks forced to me.
Agree here. Definitely does a good job of illustrating the point, but think the white balance point chosen made the image overall a bit too pink tinged. I often click around quite a few spots on an image to set the white balance, and definitely have the best luck in getting what my eye sees as "natural" when I use medium gray tones to set the balance rather than what should be white. Gives a more balanced tone I think.
fairybasslet
October 5th, 2006, 10:24 AM
All these ideas are the reason why my photos sit in the computer, unprocessed. So many ideas, so little time, and I can never make up my mind. It's like trying to pick out a color of paint. My bedroom went unpainted for 3 years because I couldn't decide on a color.:rofl3:
Anyway, looking back at that #10 photo Alcina, I agree that the second coral tree looks a tad artificial, but comparing it to the first one, I think that one needs improving too. The dilmema is, how to do it!!:rofl3:
rjsimp
October 5th, 2006, 12:26 PM
Okay, this picture is what it is.. Not a very good picture for color. But, I decided to Nikon Capture NX and do a new one since that is what I would normally use for something that needs correction. Again, I like the corrected one better (the one done with Capture NX) as I think the original is very boring. Sorry I didn't go all out on my example I used in the previous post, but geez.. I was busy at the time.. :D
To sum it up, you can do a LOT with raw and color correction or you can leave them "native". Depends on your taste, but some work native whereas many don't IMHO.
Here are the 3 versions now.
Original Picture from the Camera (shown in Post # 10)
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c80/rjsimp/Cayman092006/NotWhiteBalanced.jpg
White Balanced with Aperture by just selecting a point on the sand. Nothing else, just a quick white balance. (shown in Post # 10)
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c80/rjsimp/Cayman092006/WhiteBalanced.jpg
White Balanced with Nikon Capture NX by using a selection of the sand. I also pumped up the saturation a bit to bring out a few colors.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c80/rjsimp/Cayman092006/WhiteBalanced2.jpg
Land Locked
October 5th, 2006, 12:45 PM
Ok....quick question, most all of my diving photos come out with a strong green hue,
can you say, "quarry diver?" I've been using PS to color correct the red. Would I be
advised to just use a red correcting lens or continue photoshopping my pictures?
My concern is, when I'm shooting in more ideal conditions I may have to go back and
remove some of the red provided by the lens.
Thank you in advance for any helpful advice!
rjsimp
October 5th, 2006, 01:12 PM
Ok....quick question, most all of my diving photos come out with a strong green hue,
can you say, "quarry diver?" I've been using PS to color correct the red. Would I be
advised to just use a red correcting lens or continue photoshopping my pictures?
My concern is, when I'm shooting in more ideal conditions I may have to go back and
remove some of the red provided by the lens.
Thank you in advance for any helpful advice!
Actually the magic filter people are working on a "green water" filter that you can use if you want to do natural light pictures. The other option is still to do a white balance (either in the camera or later on a RAW picture). Finally, you can shoot a strobe still, but get VERY close if your "green water" is anything like ours is here in Texas. :D
Jamdiver
October 5th, 2006, 06:07 PM
Okay, this picture is what it is.. Not a very good picture for color. But, I decided to Nikon Capture NX and do a new one since that is what I would normally use for something that needs correction. Again, I like the corrected one better (the one done with Capture NX) as I think the original is very boring. Sorry I didn't go all out on my example I used in the previous post, but geez.. I was busy at the time.. :D
To sum it up, you can do a LOT with raw and color correction or you can leave them "native". Depends on your taste, but some work native whereas many don't IMHO.
Here are the 3 versions now.
Original Picture from the Camera (shown in Post # 10)
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c80/rjsimp/Cayman092006/NotWhiteBalanced.jpg
White Balanced with Aperture by just selecting a point on the sand. Nothing else, just a quick white balance. (shown in Post # 10)
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c80/rjsimp/Cayman092006/WhiteBalanced.jpg
White Balanced with Nikon Capture NX by using a selection of the sand. I also pumped up the saturation a bit to bring out a few colors.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c80/rjsimp/Cayman092006/WhiteBalanced2.jpg
Very nice rjsimp :).
Your pics remind me of some of my photos before and after I've run through them CS2 ;).
alcina
October 5th, 2006, 06:49 PM
Thanks for taking the time to put up a different take on it. A very good post to show that there is no "right" way and that there are a million different ways to tweak something.
I can't count the number of times I've started to play with an image and then just lost hours and hours and ended up with five or six versions! BUT for me, this is not the norm. Usually that is on an image that didn't make the first cut anyway...my first round photos generally lend themselves to a quick tweak and a fairly definitive one so anything else I might fool with just looks wrong. For me, that works fairly well and stops me from going crazy.
Then later, I head back to the files to see what else is in there that might need some lovin'. I often find photos that should have been first rounders but that I had overlooked in my initial browse. Then again, I am terrible at getting my images dealt with - still have files from last year that aren't sorted...and still have files from when I was shooting the Oly 5050 that aren't sorted LOL
rjsimp
October 5th, 2006, 08:27 PM
I can't count the number of times I've started to play with an image and then just lost hours and hours and ended up with five or six versions! BUT for me, this is not the norm. Usually that is on an image that didn't make the first cut anyway...my first round photos generally lend themselves to a quick tweak and a fairly definitive one so anything else I might fool with just looks wrong. For me, that works fairly well and stops me from going crazy.
Exactly! That's what this picture is, nothing more than a "junk" picture that I had to show an example. I looked through some pictures I had sitting around and saw it to show. Up to this point, I never showed it to anyone :D However, IF I wanted a picture of this particular coral, I had options which is what I was showing .. :blinking:
rjsimp
October 5th, 2006, 08:30 PM
Very nice rjsimp :).
Your pics remind me of some of my photos before and after I've run through them CS2 ;).
Thanks Jam! It was actually a failed attempt at a picture, my strobes didn't fire correctly because they saw too much light and the STUPID Sea & Sea YS-90 Auto strobes don't have a true manual mode so therefore, NO LIGHT! :light:
It would have been interesting to see it with the strobe to see what colors I could have really gotten. But, oh well.. that's why we go diving more.. :D
I will say this though.. Stingray city is a dive that I would definitely just shoot without strobes and do a white balance in post editing. You can get some killer shots doing that and so the same techniques I used to quickly do this picture, I would really use in practice for those shots.
Fastmarc
October 5th, 2006, 11:51 PM
Apart from colour correcting, what do you all think of 'Smart Sharpening' in PS or other similar sharpeners in other editing program.
Do they work?
alcina
October 6th, 2006, 12:04 AM
Yup, they absolutely do work. Play around with USM and smart sharpen.
Watch for haloes and other telltales that you've gone too far. Pretty much every digital image will need some sharpening - even most cameras that do some in-camera produce images that need it. If you shoot in RAW, you get to make this decision, too!
If you lay hands on a book like Scott Kelby's range there are about 100 different ways to sharpen.
Fastmarc
October 6th, 2006, 12:26 AM
Great, more stuff for me to get lost in.
IS THERE NO END?
Shouldn't there be a warning posted on the front page of this forum?
"Warning: You will get sucked in and loose countless hour doing something you enjoy, but your significant other or business partner won't.":D
Jamdiver
October 6th, 2006, 08:24 AM
Apart from colour correcting, what do you all think of 'Smart Sharpening' in PS or other similar sharpeners in other editing program.
Do they work?
Sharpen you say ;).
This is one of the best tutorials on proper usage of the sharpening filters in Photoshop, whether they be Smart Sharpen or Unsharp mask......
I highly recommend it, it's about 25 minutes long.
http://www.radiantvista.com/archive/video_tutorials/7/
Fastmarc
October 6th, 2006, 11:04 AM
Sharpen you say ;).
This is one of the best tutorials on proper usage of the sharpening filters in Photoshop, whether they be Smart Sharpen or Unsharp mask......
I highly recommend it, it's about 25 minutes long.
http://www.radiantvista.com/archive/video_tutorials/7/
Done that.;)
I came across it from the first time you gave me that link. I agree... very informative.
Thanks.
fairybasslet
October 6th, 2006, 02:33 PM
I am terrible at getting my images dealt with - still have files from last year that aren't sorted...and still have files from when I was shooting the Oly 5050 that aren't sorted LOL
