RAW Converters’ Subtle Secret

And a new Lightroom Preset!

The primary reason for working in RAW is to gain access to your sensor’s unmanipulated data: the pristine pixels captured.  Standard procedure is to-somehow-get your pictures into an image editing program so that you can create a version of your picture for output to screen or print.  It is easy to be lulled into the belief that because you are shooting RAW you are getting data that hasn’t yet been massaged. Depending upon your RAW converter of choice, that may not be the case.

“Perhaps you can find some room
for improvement by doing a
little unimprovement first.”

I prefer Lightroom from Adobe as a RAW converter for managing many images.  One of the things beginners to Lightroom fail to realize is that the image that appears after import is not your pristine image. It has had a few tweaks applied, non destructively, to give you a more pleasing appearance to begin with.  They are not as severe as the adjustments necessary to produce a JPG file but the adjustments still modify your image’s appearance somewhat.

 
Standard pre-flight adjustments applied by a RAW converter.

The types of adjustments pre-applied to your image typically don’t vary by camera.  With my Canon equipment, the images receive a Brightness boost of 50 and a Contrast boost of 25. The blacks are pulled to +5. A medium contrast curve is applied. Finally a modest amount of sharpening and noise reduction is added. All files get color noise reduction by default.  All of this is done to make your RAW file look just a little more pleasing straight out of the camera.  True, the changes are non-destructive but you are not beginning at that zero-adjustment starting point you might believe you were.

Left: Pre-processed Lightroom. Right: Set back to zero.

The above example illustrates the difference in the standard RAW pre-processing in Lightroom for the Canon camera and the file as it is set back to Zero. In situations where you are trying to pull detail from shadows or highlights, this pre-conditioning of your RAW file might be handicapping your efforts. Consider the following histograms.

 
Left: Pre-processed by Lightroom. Right: Set back to zero.

The pre-processed file has already plugged shadow detail. It has also pushed the highlights to the edge.  The zeroed file has plenty of room in the shadow detail and the highlight range to control these areas sufficiently in your post-processing regiment. Which histogram would you rather work with?

It isn’t a big deal. The RAW converter is simply trying to give you a little head start on where most RAW images need to go. You can always undo Lightroom’s settings and slide all those pre-adjusted values back to zero. You just have to remember where they are and get them all reset.  You also have the option of zeroing everything and then setting as the new default for a particular camera on import. Or you can use a preset so that you can adjust one image quickly or do all your images on import. If you are working on an HDR Scene or an over or under exposed scene you might want to try turning off the pre-conditioning and see if you can get a better adjustment on your own.

Creating a RAW reset preset for application one or many times.

I have done this. I have zeroed all the options and created a preset that sets everything Lightroom preconditions back to the way it was on the original file.  With this preset, I can preview the effect (or rather lack of adjustments) in the Navigation window with a mouse over, I can apply it and undo it just like any other effect or preset and I can apply it to all images during import.

Download the Preset

I have made a copy of my Original RAW File Preset available on my website or by clicking the button above. Install it as you would any Preset and see if you like working from scratch better than with the pre-packaged ingredients offered by the standard Lightroom import.  As with all my free presets, you, the user, are responsible for its proper use and appropriateness.

If you are importing RAW directly into your application ala Corel PhotoPaint, PSP or other image editor, a little understanding of what dedicated RAW converters are doing behind the scenes to pre-treat the data can help your improve conversion efforts. If you use another dedicated RAW converter, double check it to see what import settings it may be applying to your image before you get your hands on it.  Perhaps you can find some room for improvement by doing a little unimprovement first.

Rikk Flohr © 2009

del.icio.us Tags: Lightroom,Presets,RAW,Image editing

Editor’s Note: As Mark points out in the comment section, Lightroom provides a “General-Zero” preset.  A quick comparison of the two in a text editor will reveal that they are very similar but not identical. I thought you should be aware of the existence of the Adobe pre-canned preset.

Tips on Shooting Pool

And a new Lightroom Preset too!

Long Exposure Panning:
1/8th second exposure at 120 MM Focal Length

Swimming pools, particularly indoor pools, can be problematic to shoot. Indoor pools are devoid of windows wherever possible-at least the pools I frequent: namely the pools where my son’s swim team practices and competes.  The lighting, while dim, is also Sodium Vapor and doesn’t yield well to color balancing.  I wrote about white balancing Sodium Vapor before and I am prepared to update that message today.

I find that shooting in the pool environment means that I have to take many exposures on burst mode to capture some nice peak action. I throw away as 60% of my images from a shoot like this. You can improve your odds a little by shooting JPG. This allows you to get more frames per second and keeps you from filling the buffer too quickly. My Canon 5D is set to produce medium-sized JPGs so that I can get a fast shoot and many more shots per memory card.

Try to catch the look as swimmers come up for air.

Swimming pools, particularly those hosting competitive events, have no-flash policies. This means fast lens and high ISO settings are your salvation. I like to use a 50 MM 1.8 for most of my shooting and a 70-200 MM F2.8L IS for my close ups. The lenses are fast enough that I can do most of my shooting at ISO 800. Diving requires that I kick it up to 1600 to gain enough shutter speed to freeze the diver’s movements.  I usually end up around 1/160th and F2.8 for most of my shooting. Diving needs to be 1/250th or faster to help freeze the action.

 
Even at 1/320th of a second there is still some blur!

I find that shooting on Manual with the White Balance, Exposure, and Aperture all locked down gives me far better results than the various automatic modes.  For JPG, I set the camera to force the WB to 3800° K or I sample a white object under pool lighting conditions in the White Balance Sampling function of the 5D. With a camera set to record in JPG mode it is critical that you get white balancing as close as you can.  Unlike RAW, you can’t satisfactorily change it later.  

I have developed a Sodium Vapor White Balance Preset for Lightroom. It works well for the lights in my pool when I am shooting RAW. It makes JPGs come out too blue so I don’t recommend it there.  In the Lightroom preset, the temperature setting is 3833° K and the tint is +15 if you want to adjust it in another program. You can try it in Lightroom by downloading the preset here.

Download the Preset

After that, it is all about framing and focusing. If you watch the pool’s ‘records placard’ on the wall,  it can give you an idea of what is coming next as the races are always in order.  Freestyle events look best photographed from the side while Butterfly and Breast Stroke look best from the end of the pool with the swimmers coming toward you. Backstroke looks best from the end of the pool with the swimmer moving away or from the side. Always look for tight shots showing moments of tension on the starting blocks.  Another shot is the “reaction to the scoreboard” shot after the swimmer touches but before he climbs out of the pool.

Spectators and Competitors make for great juxtapositions!

Shooting from the pool deck can be fun and rewarding if you can secure permission. You can get by with less lens and you don’t have to worry about a tripod or monopod. Your view is often less obscured by intervening swimmers, coaches and referees. Watch out for race starts and turns as the splashes can travel quite far.  If you are shooting from the gallery a monopod is a great accessory and a long lens is critical to getting recognizable faces in your shots.

1/160th or faster will freeze the water nicely in mid-air.

The secret to getting good pool action photos is to get the face in frame. Watch the swimmers and notice how they breath. Learn to anticipate the number of strokes and the pattern of the side on which they choose to breath.  By knowing the stroke that is currently active, the breathing pattern and timing your shot you can get great close-ups of swimmers in the heat of athletic competition. With your fastest shutter speed you can muster, you can also get some interesting patterns in the water, demonstrating the power of the athlete.

This week I experimented with long shutter-speed panning. I stopped down and ISO’d back to get my shutter speed to the 1/8th second or slower. By carefully following the action, and using your lens’ built-in image stabilization (if it is so equipped), you can get some interesting effects as swimmers flow through silky water.  The top photo in this blog was my favorite of my panning attempts today.  I wrote more about long-exposure panning in this article.

There’s just a few tips for getting your feet wet in the pool environment. 

For review:

1. Shoot JPG to improve your speed and card capacity
2. Plan to throw a lot of images away
3. Carefully White Balance in-camera prior to shooting
4. Shoot In Manual Mode
5. Learn the sequence of action so you can be in the right place pointed at the right subject at the decisive moment
6. Get faces in the frame

Now, everybody: Into the pool!

Rikk Flohr © 2009

del.icio.us Tags: swimming pool,sodium vapor,white balance,sports photography,swim

White Balancing for Compact Fluorescent Bulbs

Green Bulbs are strangely missing from the
White Balance Selections Choices

If you scroll down the options for White Balance in any RAW software converter you will find that there are many options. In the age of green-thinking and the prevalence of alternative-low energy light sources, you would think that photography software would be catching up. It is not-at least so far.

Example: My home is filled with Compact Fluorescent Bulbs (herein after referred to as CF).  I can save energy and feel smug about my environmental awareness. None of my favorite software packages have a White Balance preset or option for dealing with images taken in predominately CF light. I tried the presets for Tungsten and for Standard Fluorescent  and found the were too warm or too cool for the CF light.  I set about creating a custom preset for Lightroom that I could apply repeatedly and easily. Once I have a preset, I can then port the settings for °K and Tint to any program and have a guide to get me close to start.

RAW file with AWB as displayed in Lightroom. 

I started with a MacBeth ColorChecker sitting in a darkened room illuminated by a pair of CF Bulbs. I photographed it with a Canon 5D in RAW with Automatic White Balance as my setting. The RAW file was imported into Lightroom.  The image above appears very warm and slightly green.

Then I applied the color space for the Canon 5D Camera Neutral in the Calibration Panel. Having profiled my cameras using the DNG Color Profiler software last week, I have a preset made to perform a camera-specific color profile application. As you can see my two 5Ds have individual profiles identified by the last three digits of their serial numbers,  so that I can dial in each camera’s color accuracy individually.  The resulting camera correction is applied in the image you see below.

RAW File with the Canon 5D Color Profile Applied

The difference between the files isn’t dramatic but I want to be certain that I have eliminated as many color variables as possible.  I now have several Neutral Targets that I can sample with the White Balance Eye Dropper Sample Tool in Lightroom.  The values varied slightly over the gamut of grayscale at the bottom of the ColorChecker but were very close. Temperature ranged from 2750-2850 and the Tint ranged from +8 to +12.  The three grays immediately below white were almost identical so that was chosen to be the standard.  Below is the result of the WB correction. 2800° K and Tint of +11 was the final verdict.

Profiled by Camera and White Balanced for CF Light

Fluorescent (L) and Tungsten (R) for comparison

As you can see, this result is far better than the originals and can be applied via preset to a host of images at once.  Fluorescent and Tungsten are close but not quite there. Fluorescent misses badly and tungsten shows some cast in the darker tones-especially the dark gray next to black.

Now bulbs vary by manufacturer and type so your mileage may vary. Bulbs also change with time so you will see slight variations. If you don’t know the color temperature of the bulbs under which you are exposing, you have a means to find that with a simple color checker. If you would like, I have made my preset available for download from my website located at www.fleetingglimpse.com. The preset is available by clicking on the icon below, downloading the file and placing it in your Develop module presets folder for Lightroom. Or, if you use ACR, Photo-Paint or some other software package, you can enter the values listed above into your RAW converter.

Download the Preset

In the future, let us hope that more presets are available native for the software for the new types of lighting which emerge. What should I tackle next? LED? Perhaps.

Email me and let me know how things are going with the preset.

Rikk Flohr © 2008

del.icio.us Tags: CF,compact fluorescent,white balance,lightroom,preset,develop module