# This morning



## Mack (Nov 8, 2004)

I arrived at this spot which is not too far from where I live in the early hours. It was dark and cold and I had in mind what I wanted to do so I got on with it.

Unfortunatly I had taken the tripod attchment off my camera a few days earlier and had'nt put it back. My spare was in my old camera bag as this bag was a new present. 

Rather than go home enpty handed I decided to use a close by wall and high iso settings. I also had to use a large appature which is not great for seascapes but I had little choice if I was to get the shot.

So here it is. Lots of noise and not as sharp as I would have liked due to the shallow dof but i wasn't going home with nothing


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## DonaldG (Aug 23, 2007)

At 9.08 this morning, for 1/10th second @ f/4.5 and ISO1600 that is a great shot. The Canon 40D is working well.

Open the image back into CS5 and hit ctrl-L and set the three figures to:
0, 1.00 and 175 instead of 0, 1.00 & 255 This will give you a cleaner white.

That is a quick way of setting the histogram to give maximum data out of that image.


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## Mack (Nov 8, 2004)

It was actually 8:08am. My camera is not set to daylight savings.

Anyway thanks for the comments Donald and good call on the histogram settings. I'm always a bit carefull about going too bright so I do tend to be conservitive, it does look better in some respects but may have lost some of its atmosphere?. I guess its a personal thing.

Yes I love my 40D, it was a great investment. Next stop full frame, in a year or two if im lucky


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## DonaldG (Aug 23, 2007)

OK, now do a Google for 'Grad Filter' for Photoshop. There are a several easy tutorials. Use the grad filter to darken down the clouds - that will put back the atmosphere.

If you shoot in raw, CS5 has an incredible grad filter that can be use multiple times and at different angles and different strengths. It can be a grad filter to darken or lighten, colour enhance, sharpen etc.

I suggest that you take a RAW shot and experiment with it. The Canon RAW plugin will start automatically when you try to open a .CR2 (Canon RAW).

Coming back to the histogram - the start and end of the histogram is the representation of all of the data therein. The black & white points on the slider should just coincide with the start/finish points. 

A better way but a little more complex is to use curves (Ctrl-M) that way you can alter just certain sections of the histogram. However the image will still invariably improve if the black/white points coincide with the start/stop points of the histogram

Somewhere on this machine , I have a tutorial on setting the histogram - I have to go off line in a moment - I will try and find it later and post it...


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## DonaldG (Aug 23, 2007)

Grad filter - Try this tutorial - It is quick & easy and works very well.

This will get you well into 'tweaking' as D_F puts it :grin:


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## Mack (Nov 8, 2004)

Thanks for the great tut Donald. I actually use ND filters when I shoot as I don't always have access to photoshop but I was in no mood this morning. I was just trying to salvage somthing from my morning.

I always shoot in raw simply because when I have more skill and my own photoshop I can revisit some of my images and get more out of them them. I do some editing in DPP but I dont save this to the raw file, I leave that un-touched and archive it. After that I use gimp mostly but I was thinking of purchasing Photoshop elements. Do you have any experiance with it? if so would you recomend it?


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## WereBo (Apr 5, 2008)

That's a beautiful moody photo there Mack, I love the effect of having a slow(ish) shutter on the sea-spray, just right-of-centre :grin:


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## DonaldG (Aug 23, 2007)

If you have full time access to Photoshop CS5 then don't bother with anything else. However, Photoshop elements is exactly that. Elements from Photoshop. I would tend to go for that as my second choice.

I am not sure about Elements RAW processing ability. The best bet is to look at the Adobe website and read up on it. The alternative is Paintshop Pro or whatever its newfangled name is...

Just coming back to your photo for a moment. Now that I know you have the RAW (.CR) file...

Open the .cr2 into the Canon RAW plug in and select the 'Detail' button in top of the right hand pane. (the third button along). 

Right click on the image and select 100% view and study the ISO/colour noise generated by 1600iso setting you used. In the section 'Noise Reduction', find the 'Luminance' slider and very slowly move it to the right at the same time as observing the noise in the image. Stop moving the slider when the noise disappears and merges smoothly.

If you do any sharpening, re adjust the Luminance noise slider accordingly....

It is essential that this control is only used when you are viewing the image at 100% or you will not be able to see the optimum amount of noise reduction.


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## Mack (Nov 8, 2004)

Thanks Werebo. I apreciate the comment.

Donald. I played around with the settings you mentioned and I then did my mono conversion. The noise is dramatically reduced. I didn't spend a lot of time on it but even with this quick job I could see massive improvements in overall image quality. Thank you so much for the giving of your time on this. Really appreciate it.


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## DonaldG (Aug 23, 2007)

That does look good Mack - well done. 

Those are some mighty awesome tools in the RAW plugin. I suggest that you do a deliberate over exposure and under exposure and see what can be recovered.

On contrast images have a play with the fill light slider, its magic...

Mack, it is my pleasure in helping where ever I can. The Photographer's Corner was created for this and to be a club where like minded folk can hang out...


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## Done_Fishin (Oct 10, 2006)

Thanks for sharing Don & the tutorial on "tweaking" :laugh: .. A Nice photo was improved and improved again (to my eyes anyway) .. and I am slowly getting more & more jealous as time goes by ..


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## grimx133 (Jan 15, 2008)

Know what you mean, I figure a dslr will be coming this way sometime next year. 

Great pictures!


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