photo editing help

kratos1028

kratos1028

Active member
I downloaded adobe lightroom 4.3 and I am having trouble editing the pictures after i take them. I shot a bunch in RAW and took them using manual mood so it was my first go at that too so I can edit it to the way it looks like as I see it in person since its impossible to take pictures under LEDs and I am coming up with crap lol This is what I ended up with after editing and it doesn't look right to me. What do you guys think?

After I upload the image to lightroom, there is a section on the side for white balance and it has temperature, tint, exposure, clarity, vibrancy, etc. to fix the image. Am I using the right section for fixing the image? After converting from RAW to JPEG, the image looses some of the quality too. Any way to keep as much of that as possible when converting image formats?







 
RAW files allow you to adjust camera settings such as temperature, tint, exposure, clarity, vibrancy after the image has been taken without sacrificing image quality. For this example, I will use temperature. With a RAW file you can easily adjust your white balance / temperature to be warmer or cooler depending on your desired look. Lets say you took a great photo under actinic lighting/10K but forgot to adjust your white balance from daylight/5600K, a RAW file will let you change this. This same color correction with a JPEG (5600k to 10K) is much more complex and requires effort to keep a desired tonal range and not to 'crush' any one particular color.

RAW files are not used in print or digital work and will eventually will need to be compressed. JPEG, TIFF, and GIF files are a common way of accomplishing this. Each has it own benefits of preserving working layers, transparency, and file size. JPEG is a very common format and is widely used in both print and digital media. There are also different compression settings for JPEG quality. Less compression will offer higher image quality (print work) more compression will reduce image quality and optimize the image for web.

Darkroom work either traditional or digital is subjective. That is where the "art" comes in. There is no one "right" way to do it. I try not to mess with RAW unless I know I will have to adjust something later (typically this may be on vacation when there are multiple light sources of different temps). In other words, temperature, tint, exposure, clarity, vibrancy, RAW adjustments are for major adjustments that you missed while setting up your shot. Color curves are used for refining the color/tone.

What specifically would you like help with?
 
I wanted to know if there was a way to make the image loose "less" quality converting it from RAW to JPEG. I was able to figure out with some help on how to play around with the color setting. Its hard taking pictures under LEDs and getting what you see on the camera so I decided to try taking some practice pictures today in manual and RAW mode to help with that.

Also, from the pictures I posted you can see how the purple and blue colors seem very saturated. What setting would I change to bring that to normal? I tried temperature but that doesn't help. You can see the blue hippo saturated along with a few corals and it doesn't seem normal to me.
 
Buy a white balance card (or make one) and use it as your control setting for the rest of your images. Once you have the settings adjusted for the photo taken with the card, just copy and paste those settings for all the other images taken under the same lighting. It makes things easy. You could be technical and use the card on every shot you take, which would be even more accurate. When exporting your image from lightroom, for conversion, there is an adjustable setting that asks how much quality you prefer to keep. Set it to 100%.
 
One way to take pictures under LEDs (I know I'm not answering your question in this topic but ) still might help you is to turn off all the blues and keep only whites and then modifying the picture to represent actual colors is easy
 
Joe Lydon said:
Buy a white balance card (or make one) and use it as your control setting for the rest of your images. Once you have the settings adjusted for the photo taken with the card, just copy and paste those settings for all the other images taken under the same lighting. It makes things easy. You could be technical and use the card on every shot you take, which would be even more accurate. When exporting your image from lightroom, for conversion, there is an adjustable setting that asks how much quality you prefer to keep. Set it to 100%.
Click to expand...

Where do I buy a white balance card from/how do I make one?

tinman said:
One way to take pictures under LEDs (I know I'm not answering your question in this topic but ) still might help you is to turn off all the blues and keep only whites and then modifying the picture to represent actual colors is easy
Click to expand...

I would still have to modify if I kept the blues on so even if I turn the blues off, I can't avoid modifying it.
 
kratos1028 said:
Where do I buy a white balance card from/how do I make one?



I would still have to modify if I kept the blues on so even if I turn the blues off, I can't avoid modifying it.
Click to expand...

If ur using LEDs... Make the lights as white as possible. No matter what. Ur basically trying to get the pic to look exactly like u see with ur naked eye. So if ur tank is blue.. Ur pic will b blue after all the fixes.


As for white card. Use a new frag plug. Just change ur focus to manual and make sure u have nothing but the plug in the pic... Or do what I do. Just shoot the closest I can on camera then use the WB corrector on Lightroom by clicking on either the sand, rock, or plug. Or white object in pic. U should b ok.
 
Thanks Jorge. I will try that out. For the new plug you are talking about, do I just take a picture of it in my tank or out of my tank and do I keep my normal lights on or should I also change my lights to just whites and no blues to take the picture of the plug for white balance adjustment?
 
Take a photo of a white object under the current lighting. But, Most camera's have trouble under strong blue light. Changing your LED lights to white (or anything under 10K) will help aid the camera sensor. Using a white balance card like Joe suggested or a white object in the tank like Jorge suggested will 'recalibrate' how the camera sees color. In other words, overriding how the sensor sees white.

For example:
8689486271_4a3792d807_z.jpg


8689485979_ce69234d1a_z.jpg
 
tangency, that definitely helped with what you did with the white balance on that picture! It looks more closer to how I see in the second picture. How did you bring out the white panel to adjust it like that?
 
kratos1028 said:
tangency, that definitely helped with what you did with the white balance on that picture! It looks more closer to how I see in the second picture. How did you bring out the white panel to adjust it like that?
Click to expand...

Do you want to know how to do it with your camera or digitally?
 
Well then let's start with the basics! Lets adjust your cameras white balance.

1. If possible we need to change your aquariums lighting to remove as much of the blue as possible. It is not necessary, but it will help with your end result.

2. Now this is the part that's a little tricky to explain. Most DSLR cameras have this feature but no two camera are alike. Under your camera body settings in menu somewhere you will find your white balance settings. Under white balance option... look for set custom white balance.

3. Throw a white object in your aquarium (preferably near the object you are trying to take a photo of) By moving around your white card and subtle differences in lighting you will see different end results. You will need to experiment a little.

4. Snap a metered photo of the white object in your aquarium filling as much of the frame with the white object as possible.

5. Set this 'new' photo as the custom white balance.

6. This should skew/recalibrate how your camera perceives color. If it doesn't get you all of the way there it will help you get a better image to work with in post.

Let us/me know when you're stuck. We can help you through it. Also (if possible) post your new photo so we can help you with next steps.
 
Also when exporting files out of Lightroom there's settings to mess with in The export window.
 
So for the white card, I took a picture of white plug with couple of zoas I glued onto it last night after fragging some stuff. The plug is very white and I took a picture of that plug with the lights fully 100% instead of my normal 100% blues 60% whites. Does it matter if there are zoas on the white plug or does it have to be just the plug with nothing on it?


mr_z said:
Also when exporting files out of Lightroom there's settings to mess with in The export window.
Click to expand...

Thanks!
 
Ideally you want pure white filling the whole frame. If you have spare white plugs, try using that instead of one that has some zoas on it. Tangency is far better at this all then I am, but that's the idea with white balancing at least. Frag plugs as white balance cards is a fantastic idea by the way!
 
If you are using this for your cameras white balance setting, you will need a full image of the white object without any other colors in the photo. If you are going to use it for post-processing, aka lightroom, then having a few zoas on it will be okay because you can select the white portion. I did all this and finally just did post-processing manual white balance as I found it gave me the best representation. Once I figured out the settings that worked for my tank, I would only have to adjust it slightly depending on the photo. My lightroom trial is up and I need to just buy it, but the 2 bars I messed with were at the top of the whitebalance box (tint and temp maybe?) the top one I would slide all the way to 50000 and the one below it was if I recall correctly 50 + or -. Hope that helps alittle.
 
Thanks, I'll take another shot with just the plug.

I still don't know how to select the White portion from the picture like the way tangency did with picking the White sand in my picture. How do I do that?
 
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