Naturesetude Blog

A photographer friend passed along to me the request by John Nack of Adobe for samples of images processed from another raw converter in which the photographer felt that their processor  did a better job than Lightroom. Of course the message was accompanied with a challenge for a couple of us to prove our Capture One Pro was a better raw processor than LR. I took on the challenge and I have spent the better part of the  last several days working on this project. Armed with Capture One Pro 5, Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta, Canon’s Digital Photo Professional 3.7.2 and DXO Optics Pro 5 for the Mac. I thought I would develop an objective test from images I thought would challenge these raw processors. I chose images from a P45+, a Canon 5D Mark II and a Canon 1Ds Mark II. Using these images, I then converted them into a tiff file, 16bit, ProPhoto RGB color space (except where specified) with a file width dimension of 1,000 pixels. I then loaded these images into Chromix’s Color Think Pro, plotted to colors in Color Think’s 3D Graphics feature and compared the results of each raw processors results. The findings were surprising, revealing and remarkable for how good Lightroom 3 Beta is, if not almost too good.

What fallows are the individual images used and a presentation of the results. I think you will find this interesting as well. I am trying to keep out any personal bias that I might have, but if some sneaks in, you have the actual results to look at so that you can form your own conclusions. I do, however, have one issue with LR which I will address later and, to me affects to some extent my conclusion and the usability of LR. This has to do with profiling.

I first started with a couple of images from the P45+. I assumed that Capture One would do better than LR3 beta in that Phase One 5 sells not only the digital back but also the software that supports it. However, I found that LR3 beta held its own and in some cases, may have bettered C1 5 with on its hardware. The first image I chose was an image of a rather dramatic sunset of the Tetons. For this test, and the next couple of images, I made no adjustments to the images. For Capture One, I applied a personally developed color profile from Gretag MacBeth’s Profile Maker using their Digital Color Checker SG. For Lightroom, I used the  DNG profile developed at the same time.

As you can see, Capture One 5 does a better job of rendering the higher range yellows and reds in the image and the color is a little more full than that which was rendered from LR3 beta. (You can click on the result image to see the a larger version of the graph. Actually you need to do this twice.)

The second image is another P45+ from Mt. Rainier with lupine. It is the only image in the blues and greens and the only one in which I used a slightly different viewing technique.

In this case, Lightroom3 beta held its own or, as some it may appear from the the graph, did slightly better than Capture One 5 in the deep blues and purples.

The next image is the last P45+ test and I considered this the hardest for both as I find yellows absolutely the hardest color to capture and render. This image is of a daffodil field with a faded red barn at sunset. I personally, really like the Capture One rendering of the field as it provides me the look of that I saw that evening.

It is pretty easy to say that Lightroom3 did a better job with the yellows than Capture One 5 for there is a broader depth to the colors rendered in LR3 beta. Capture One did capture a higher range than LR3 beta was able to do with this image.

Now I get into my Canon 5D Mark II images. For the first image, that of a very red sunset along the Oregon Coast, I used Canon’s Digital Photo Professional and DXO’s Optics Pro 5. This is the only image I used Optics Pro as I was sufficiently unimpressed with its color rendering that I did not commit the time to using this for further analysis. Working with the Canon images is where Lightroom really shines and it is able to render colors equivalent to the Pro Photo RGB color space.

It is clear that both Lightroom3 and Digital Photo Professional did a better job of rendering the yellows from the area of the setting sun than the other two. For whatever reason, DXO Optics Pro 5 lost this whole color area. Capture One 5 did a decent job with this image.

In this 5D Mark II image of some tulips, both Lightroom3  beta and Capture One 5 did almost equivalent jobs and Digital Photo Professional fell down in the green area. In DPP, I made sure I was rendering the images in the equivalent ProPhoto color space. Their settings are for a Wide Gamut, but I do not believe it is as wide as Pro Photo. On later images I gave up on DPP and only used Capture One  5 and LIghtroom3 beta.

It is obvious from the clipped red area in the Digital Photo Professional graph that the color space Canon is using is not as large as the Pro Photo color space being used by Capture One 5 and Lightroom3 beta.

Ok, for the real test, another image of those yellow daffodils taken with the Canon 5D Mark II. I was just amazed at the color rendering Lightroom produced from this image and it far outshines the Digital Photo Professional and Capture One 5’s renderings.

The straight line at the bottom of Lightroom3 beta’s yellow rendering is the result of it running up against the Pro Photo RGB space. What is now really interesting, I took the Lightroom rendition and, first of all compared it with the Adobe RGB color space as well as a Epson 9900 Premium Glossy profile.  Next I exported from LR3 beta the Canon Raw image with an Adobe RGB color space and then with a sRGB color space. Here are the results.

As you can see, Lightroom3 beta, does an excellent job of capturing all the shades of yellow from this scene, but virtually all of these colors, at least 50% of the yellow is beyond the ability of our displays and printers to utilize. That I know of, there is only one monitor, a LaCie 700 series monitors that are able to display the full Adobe RGB color space. The other very good monitors come as close as 94% to 98%.

I then exported from Capture One 5 a rendering of this 5D II image of the daffodil field using a profile developed in Profile Maker with the MacBeth’s Digital Color Checker SG and compared its rendering to the Adobe RGB color space and the Epson 9900 Premium Glossy profile. The result is here.

As you will notice, using this profile the yellows were toned down and/or interpolated into the color space developed. This allowed me see and print a larger selection of the yellows from this field then I was able to render from Lightroom. From my tests, there appears to be no effect of he DNG profile in reducing the seize of the color space as I used the Canon 5D Mark II DNG profile in developing the Lightroom image for the above graph. So, when people say they can obtain a better image from Capture One, I have a tendency to think this is what is going on. It may not be that Capture One does a better job of rendering the colors from the raw file, but rather it is its ability to allow camera profiles developed from Gretag MacBeth’s Profile Maker to gives photographers better control of the rendering.

Lightroom developed the DNG Profile Editor to allow users to profile their cameras and chose the 24 color checker as the tool for developing these color profiles. However, because Adobe chose the DNG format, it did not allow individuals, like me, the ability to independently review these profiles like one can do with Gretag MacBeths Profile Editor.  Profile Maker allows the use of either this target or  their Digital Color Checker SG with 140 colors producing better color profiles. Of course, these profiles are not as good as the ones that Adobe, Capture One, Canon, Leaf, etc develop, but with the right tool and used with knowledge, they do allow the user a better level of control over their output. Here is the simple comparison of a profile developed from the 24 patch and 140 patch targets from the Canon 5D Mark II. The color profile on the inside is the 24 patch profile and the outside, shaded profile is from the 140 patch profile.

Since reds were an area of complaint about Lightroom, I will include one more image from the Canon 1Ds Mark II of some red tulips at sunset.

As you can see, a fair amount of the red from the tulip image falls outside of the Adobe RGB color space from the LR3 beta rendering while virtually all of the red is retained withing the Adobe RGB color space for the Capture One 5 image. So does this make the Capture One 5 image better than the Lightroom3 beta? I don’t know. You decide. For future use, when we have monitors that allow us to see more than Adobe RGB, this will be a good thing, but for right now, there is hardly any benefit. to throwing away this color and not being able to see and use it. It is true, however, that the Epson 9900 and 7900 printers can print a slightly larger rendition of an Adobe RGB profile, but the reality of using colors way beyond Adobe RGB is sometime in the future.

As a final comment, I have noticed the ability of other programs to do a better job at “presenting” their images on the monitor than Lightroom. For example, in several Mt. Rainier image, in LR the whites looked blown out but in C1 they did not. Given the results of the tests above, I know that LR is capturing all the colors, but I wonder how good a job it is doing with its display feature. I have noticed this factor over time and it has lead me to conclude, maybe falsely,  that LR does not do as good as C1 based on this aspect.

Earl

A couple of months ago I added an Eizo CG 241W Monitor to my work station and am very pleased with its performance. Initially, I was not sure about its build in profiling system as it would not allow me to adjust the brightness, but after working with it for a while, I became very confident of its performance. The monitor definitely has its own profiling system which only needs a measurement tool, like a X-rite Eye-One, Color Munki or other device for preforming the color profile.

A couple of features that I have grown to like are its ability to have two, profiled, color temperature settings, 5200 and 6500, with which one can bounce back and forth depending on what a person is working on. So when working on printed material I can use the 5200 setting which gives me a little better look at the image as it will appear on paper and then when working on web images, easily bounce to the 6500 temperature setting. This is all done with Eizo’s ColorNavigator CE calibration software which retains both settings.

The other feature that I have grown to appreciate is that Eizo’s ColorNavigator software keeps track of the hours of use and after 200 hours hounds the user into updating their profile. Initially, I found this to be an annoyance and ignored it until I finally updated the profile taking now time at all. This is a very good feature for busy individuals who put off some of the important little stuff necessary for maintaining good accurate colors.

In writing this post, I noticed that the price of these monitors has come down a bit. They are still expensive, but for the serious photographer who is concerned with viewing stable, reliable colors, they are worth the investment.

The other evening I return to Queen Ann Hill’s Kerry Park in Seattle to update my images of the Space Needle, the Seattle Center, downtown Seattle and Mt. Rainier. Seattle has experienced considerable development over the last several years; about the same age as the last images I took from this spot so it was time for an update of the Seattle skyline.

In my years living in Seattle and more specifically, being involved in Photography, I have probably ventured to this spot around six times for pictures of this skyline. This is actually a very nostalgic spot for my as my grandparents lived about two blocks from this park and my wife retains many images of me as a 4 and 5 year old taken from this park overlooking Seattle. In none of my more recent visits have I been the only photographer here. This Thursday I found an even higher number than I last remembered with somewhere between 10 to 12 individuals with quality digital cameras capturing the fading light. I do think this number has steadily grown over the years, encouraged by the ease of technology, the economy and the social dynamics of our population. But maybe this evening’s warmth, sunny and relatively clear spring weather helped entice all of us to the top of Queen Ann Hill for the sunset.

Recently, I spent some time talking to a family member about photography and we talked of one of my trips to Monument Valley. He chided me about that being a well-photographed location. Actually, I think there are a lot of well-photographed locations these days, and this spot on Highland Drive is right up there and it represents the increased supply of quality images available in the market. With the advancement in digital equipment there is really not a lot of separation between manufactures so it is up to the photographer and his marketing to distinguish himself.

After parking my car across the street from Kerry Park and gathering my equipment, the very first think I was confronted with was a full seize picture like the one above pasted to the side of a touring van. Obviously, that photographer had done well with his or her image from this spot. However, the closer I looked at the picture, the more I realized this image was not to be had from this location since it had been Photoshoped. The actual image is below. They had cropped out Mt. Rainier and enlarged it enough to enhance the mountain without making it overly dramatic.

So what is and is not appropriate in augmenting an image. What a tough question! For the photographer of the van image, she was able to provide a dramatic photo to help entice people to Kerry Park to watch the sunsets. She was able to differentiate herself from the rest of the crowd with a unique image and generate for herself a nice return.

While it may not exactly be the same thing, but photographers have been enhancing images long before digital photography and Photoshop came into play. Double exposure was used for years to either capture the moon by changing the exposure setting or for help in making the moon larger with a different lenses. What made Ansel Adams great was to a large degree, his darkroom techniques in addition to his sense of the scene. His ability to dodge and burn; lighten and darken areas of the photos to make them more dramatic was his trademark. Scenic film photographers used different films and filters to enhance their images of nature. With digital photography, Velvia has been replaced with “saturation and hue” control.

Unfortunately, about every six months or so we hear about some photographer who had just won an award, shot a prized photo or used an image in an important story that was found out to be altered. However, people are getting better at altering images and it is harder to detect. But images are going to be altered and in the art realm, the lines between what was capture and the final product continues to widen. If one really wants to enter fantasyland consider the subtle and/or not so subtle changes and enhancements done in the glamour industry. In a seminar I took a couple of years ago, one of the leading glamour photographers showed us the changes he normally makes to Hollywood personalities, with enlarging the eyes, narrowing the face, etc. While I do not take wedding pictures, I would imagine successful wedding photographers have had to add these capabilities to their business portfolio.

A while ago I was enraged at an image that the USGA used in one of their magazine articles about a golf course in Nevada. The artist/photographer had done such a bad job of combining the early morning light of the golf hole with plopping a couple of deer on the course that it was an insult. In addition to using a graduated colored filter to enhance shy, there was no shadow from the deer and they were floating above the green. If one is going to cheat, at least do a good job of it. It was so bad that I took the time to write and complain; never heard from them.

For me, I guess I am a traditionalist. Other than the normal color enhancing, saturation and use of graduated filters, I vary rarely change an image except for enhancing the moon, a project I find rather difficult to get right so as to look natural. I have found myself replacing the sky on some images, most recently a black and white of the wheat fields of the Palouse. The evening I was there, the sky was quite devoid of clouds and rather hazy. For this image I replaced it with an earlier shot of a clearer blue sky with nice wispy clouds. However, this is for a fine art sale and my changes are in keeping with “art.” In another blue sky was substituted for gray to enhance the yellow of the building. These are my exceptions.

As it has always been the case, bottom line is honesty in representation. In not pretending what we are. There are some really great photographers out there who take some wonderful shots and who have no need to go through back-office routines. For others, there should be the challenge for achievement and improvement. But equally, there continues to be a viable market for images that make more of the world than it really is. For me, I will market my image above but I will also market it as an enhanced image and I would not try to enter it into a contest where they are looking for original art.

Here is one more altered photo, an image of Oai on the Island of Santorini, Greece. I choose to enlarge moons in their natural setting with the light consistent with scene. I find it harder to make the moon look natural the greater the exposure difference between the scene and the one use correctly for the moon. Here, the moon was present and in this image approximately where I put it with a larger version. I just shot it separately and added it.

Earl

Geo-tagging is becoming a fairly hot topping in scenic and travel photography and I thought I would make the plunge by purchasing  JOBO’s photoGPS. This is a rather small device that mounts to the top of a camera in the flash hot-shoe. The photoGPS is rather small, 2 1/2 inches long, 1 3/4 inches wide and 1 1/4 inches high. It is easily carried in your pocket and in your bag as well as not being too expensive.

Essentially, one slides the photoGPS into the hot-shoe, takes a picture, it turns on, captures the coordinates of that image and stores the data in the device via a time stamp. This time stamp is Greenwich mean time. To let the photographer know that the device has captured the location, it has a green light on the back right of the device which flashes each time it captures the information. During a full day of shooting it  never slowed me down. Further, I never filled up the memory nor depleted the battery in the device and I believe the photoGPS will hold well over a thousand coordinates.

At the end of the day, one connects the photoGPS to your computer/laptop and downloads the coordinates via JOBO’s application software which comes in both Windows and Mac versions (one primary reason I chose this product, it was Mac supported.) With the software, one matches the individual coordinates with the image files for the day. (I used Canon RAW files.) It builds a xmp side car for raw files and tags the files with address information, county, city, state and points of interest info close by in addition to the longitude, latitude and height.

That is the general description of the product, now for my comments.

First of all, the product is really easy to use and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to get involved in geo-tagging. Further, it really makes the process of adding IPTC data easier as they get tagged with the above described information as well as adding the place information to the keyword section of the IPTC section, but more on this later.

The first major issue I had with the photoGPS is that it slides easily on “and off” the camera’s hot shoe. The device does not have a method of securing it to the hot-shoe like most flash units and other items that attach to the hot-shoe. I noticed that as I walked around with the camera, the photoGPS was easily bumped and would fall off. From fear of loosing the item, I would constantly remove it from the camera and carry it in my pocket. Since it is small, this posed no problem. However, this also meant that sometimes I forgot to put it back on the hot-shoe. Even with the photoGPS on the camera, it is easily moved off the contact point, causing one to miss the coordinates for that shot so I also found myself making sure it was properly seated if I had moved around. Hopefully, JOBO will make a modification to it to take care of this issue.

Each shot is a separate data element and represents a separate file that is downloaded from the photoGPS to ones computer. One has to be connected to the internet in order to obtain the place information and to do the geo-tagging of the images. As a result, I found it easier to download the files and keep them with the images shot for that day, separate sub folders for each day. An issue here is that the photoGPS re-starts  naming the files and so I made it a habit of separately renaming the files in a consecutive sequence.

Because the photoGPS only keeps time information based on Greenwich Mean Time and the application software matches coordinate data to images based on matched time, I changed the time in my camera to Greenwich Mean Time as well. I am not have needed to do that, but it made it easier for me.

There were a lot of times when I had more images than GPS fixes. I believe the software tries to find the GPS location closes to the shot image and applies the location information to that file. It never did not tag a file. This is the reason that I kept each day shooting in a separate folder as well as the GPS data, since the software will start with the first file. If it is from another day, it may tag it incorrectly. Also, using the Mac software I never was able to use the other features that JOB claims it has, but it may be user error.

I have used the photoGPS on two photo trips, one to Pennsylvania and another to Greece. In Pennsylvania it was just great, capturing place information and the local points of interest where I otherwise would not have expected. An example, while roaming around northern Maryland, I chanced across Fort Federick State Part which includes the only remaining complete fort of the French and Indian War. The information provided for the images shot there in IPTC were; City – Washington, Location – Fort Federick State Park, State -Maryland, USA and the appropriate time stamp (in Greenwich mean time). The application software also placed this information into the keyword section. My experience in Greece was not as great. This may be because there just is not the work done on this area. I will wait and make a judgment on using the device in other European locations  as my travel GPS device does not work in Greece either.

Using this device has caused me to change my workflow. Before, I would wait until I returned home to apply my image numbering schema and start my IPTC work. Now I apply my numbering in the field on my lap top and start the tagging process there.

This is a great product that is a time saver for photographers who want to get into GEO tagging as well as save them time in applying IPTC data. If JOBO can modify the divice to make it more secure to the hot-shoe, it will be a fantastic product.

Earl

Adding a blog to a web site is such an interesting process. The first thing I learned was to be very careful in allowing comments. In a very short order I was inundated with all kinds of comments from outside the US having nothing to do with photography or the subject at hand. I will leave it up to the reader to determine the subject matters.

Next is just the process of managing a blog, its format, incerting images and making it work correctly. I am yet to figure out exactly what I am going to use this for. Some of the space here will be used for product reviews as I want to write a piece on the JOBO Photo GPS. I suppose I should use to to conver information about travel and our observations.

Earl

My wife gave me the obituary article for the passing of Ms Jean Keene on January 13, 2009. She was otherwise known as the Eagle Lady of Homer, Alaska and the world will miss her.

She was a testament to how one person dedicated to a cause can affect the survival of a species, touch millions of people, impact a community and leave a lasting impression on all those who came in contact with her.

For those not aware of who she was, essentially, she was a single lady who managed  and lived in a trailer park in the middle of the Homer Spit on Kachemak Bay. Beginning in 1970, she started acquiring free leftover fish parts from the a cannery nearby and fed Bald Eagles during the winter months. She continued this practice up until her death. Earlier in her life when she had more strength and there was a larger availability of food source, she would perform this task  twice a day, but later in life, she only feed them at 10:30 am.

I made my first trip to Homer Alaska in early March, 1999 as part of a Photo Safari organized by Moose Peterson. What I experienced was short of amazing. On any given day about 100 to 500 bald eagles would show up at her place flying in from all parts of the Kenai Peninsula. My second trip was three years later and already she was slowing down and finding it harder to acquire food for her eagles.

To her, the eagles came first. While she was feeding them people were not allowed outside of their cars those photographers lucky enough to be asked into her compound, they were required to stand in specific spots. Those unlucky enough to not abide by her rules were treated to some fish parts originally intended for her eagles. She became widely know in the nature photography community and she has attracted virtually every professional wildlife photographer to her spot. In all that time she never asked anything for herself. I have often estimated that greater than 1/2 of all the bald eagle images in print or on the web were shot at her place. Her humble place became the major source of captivating images of bald eagles through which people everywhere increased their enjoyment, please and understanding of these magnificent birds.

Of course Ms Keene also came under some criticism from purists in the environmental community for her practice. They claimed that she was degrading a noble bird to that of a scavenger (actually, what it is) and promoting the survival of the less fit. However, I live in the State of Washington, a government which has realized that it needs to intervene and provide winter feeding sources for Rocky Mountain Sheep and Roosevelt Elk for them to survive. Ms Keene’s actions were more farsighted and practical than those of Washington State. Starting in 1967 the bald eagle was listed as an endangered species, but through the work of a lot of people like Ms Keene, the bald eagle experienced a significant comeback and was removed in 2007.

As far as Homer Alaska. I probably would never have gone there if it had not been for Ms Keene. As it is, I discovered how great a place it is. It would be interesting to know how many individuals and groups like me made treks to Home during the winter, an off tourist time, to see and photograph eagles.  I am sure she helped provide good tourist dollars for the area.

Ms Keene will be missed. There are fewer individuals with her spirit, kindness, dedication and simplicity in the world these days. I hope I get a chance to visit Home this winter in memory to her and her eagles. Her eagles will miss her as will all of us who came into contact with her.

Rest well.

Earl

I have added the links to ERPImages.com under stock. Right now there are two selections, one for ERPImages and another for PhotoShelter. I am now in the process of building to stock selection in ERPImages. Over time this web site will become more robust and eventually I plan to phase out PhotoShelter.

I have just launched my new web site. In many respects it looks the same as the last, but it has several significant improvements. First there are the two flash content areas; in the introduction and in the gallery. Second, there is the link to my temporary stock sales area. Later this will either change and/or I will add another site for stock sales. No final decision on this yet.

Now, with this post, I am adding a blog as well. As soon as I figure out how to change the template to match the rest of the web pages, this page will change as well. Personally, I am quite at a loss as to how I can advance the knowledge of photography given there are so many fine photographers out there who have an abundance of useful information. But having a blog allows for a freer form of communication.

Two final comments on the web site. The Gallery images represent recent shoots and images in the “Gallery” may or may not be found in the stock section. Some of these images may be retained as prints. Secondly, the prices listed in the “prints” page represent prints made by me on an Epson 9900 and all come with my signature and date.

I hope you like the changes and that you occasionally come back.

Earl

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!