Category Archives: Post Processing

Night photography: Lightroom 3 process version 2010

Posted on by joe

Lightroom 3 was released yesterday and includes a completely retooled raw processing engine. I’ve been experimenting with the new raw processing for night photography, and the results are encouraging. The raw file processing engine from Lightroom 2 is now the 2003 process engine, and Lightroom 3 is the 2010 process engine (reflecting the year of their release). When you first open a Lightroom 2 catalog in Lightroom 3, your photos will maintain the look and feel of the 2003 process engine. To take advantage of the newer processing technology in Lightroom 3, you’ll need to update your files to the new 2010 process engine. Here are three different ways to handle the update:

  1. In the Develop module, click the exclamation mark that appears on the bottom right. This button will only appear if you adjusted sharpening or noise reduction in Lightroom 1 or 2.
  2. From the Settings menu at the top, choose Update to Current Process (2010)
  3. In the Camera Calibration panel, choose Process: 2010

After any of these 3 methods you’ll be presented with the Update Process Version Dialog Box:

update process version dialog box

Review Changes via Before/After gives you the 2003 and 2010 process engine versions side-by-side. I recommend looking at a few photos in the before/after view to get a feel for how the new processing engine effects the color and tone of your images. Once you’re comfortable with the 2010 engine, you can bulk convert larger numbers of images to the new engine using Update All Filmstrip Photos.

Great news for night photographers: The Fill Light processing appears to be a big improvement. Without changing anything other than the process version, I’m noticing a consistent improvement in the rendering of the Darks (i.e., 3/4 tones). Darks is the tonal area between the shadows and mid-tones where a lot of the tonal information in a night photograph resides. I feel like I’m seeing into the shadows just a bit more, without losing the feeling of night. The sharpening algorithm appears to be adding a bit more kick to the Darks as well.

I’m going to continue to refine my night photography post-processing settings with Lightroom 3 in anticipation of the Fall 2010 Pearsonville Workshops. In between 3 nights of shooting at an amazing desert junkyard, we’ll spend some classroom time going over how to make your night photographs really sing using the new features in Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5.

The settings in the images below are exactly the same — the only difference is the process version. Click the image for a closer view of process 2003 vs. process 2010:

Lightroom 3 2010 Process Engine comparison -- by Joe Reifer

Lightroom 3 2010 Process Engine comparison — by Joe Reifer

Night photography: Burned orange 1966 Lincoln with flame job

Posted on by joe
Burned orange 1966 Lincoln with flame job -- by Joe Reifer

Burned orange 1966 Lincoln with flame job — by Joe Reifer

Technical details: Three exposures of 7 minutes were stacked for 21 minute long star trails (7 minutes at f/9.5, ISO 200). There is a 1 second interval between exposures — any longer would show gaps in the star trails. The Canon 5D Mark II is clean at 7 minutes without the need for noise reduction, as long as the ambient temperature is not too warm.

On the first image I did not light paint. The 2nd and 3rd exposures had different light painting. After the first three images were complete, I reviewed the light painting on the back of the camera. The interior and side of the car looked great in image #3, but there was a hot spot above the front grill. I did a fourth exposure of 3 minutes at f/8 to re-do the light painting on the front of the car. Below are all 4 images in Lightroom.

1966 Lincoln

Here are the steps involved in post-processing the final image:

  • The first 3 images for stacking star trails were processed in Lightroom with identical settings
  • The 4th image was processed in Lightroom just for the light painting
  • On the top menu in Lightroom, I opened all four images into one file using: Photo — Edit In — Open as Layers in Photoshop
  • The 2nd and 3rd image were set to Lighten blending mode to stack the star trails
  • I selected the sky and made a layer mask on the second and third image to hide the light painting but keep the star trails
  • I added a layer mask to the 4th image, and filled it with black
  • Using a soft brush at 20% opacity, the light painting from the 3rd and 4th image was added using layer masks
  • A Selective Color adjustment layer was used to make subtle changes to the color of the car and also the sky

I hope this behind the scenes look at creating a light painted image with long star trails is helpful.

Time change: Using Lightroom to correct the time on your photos

Posted on by joe

Daylight savings time started last night for most of us in the U.S. — did you remember to change the clock on your digital camera? I went to change the time on my point & shoot, and realized that I never changed it the last time. So all of my photos from last fall until yesterday are an hour ahead.

Whether the time is off on your photos due to changing time zones when traveling, or just having the camera settings wrong, there is an easy fix in Lightroom:

1. In the Library Module, click on Metadata. Use the drop-down menus to pull up the Date and Camera options. The last time change was on November 1, 2009 — I selected November through present in the Date column, and then selected the camera that wasn’t set right. This gives me a set of images shot with a specific camera over a specific time range based on the EXIF data in the Lightroom database.

Lightroom Metadata Camera Timestamp Fix 1

2. Select all of the photos, go to the Metadata menu at the very top of the screen, and choose Edit Capture Time:

Lightroom Metadata Camera Timestamp Fix 2

3. The Edit Capture Time dialogue box appears. Choose Shift by set number of hours, and then -1 (minus one, because I forgot to “fall behind” last November). Lightroom shows you the Corrected Time before you commit the settings by clicking Change All.

Lightroom Metadata Camera Timestamp Fix 3

That’s it — all of my point  & shoot files now have the correct time. I hope you find this Lightroom tip useful!

Wolf Ridge Night Photography Gallery, and Lightroom Tips

Posted on by joe
Wolf Ridge, downstairs, San Francisco view -- by Joe Reifer

Wolf Ridge, downstairs, San Francisco view — by Joe Reifer

I’ve just posted a gallery of night images from Wolf Ridge in Marin.

If you’re interested in taking a trip up to Wolf Ridge, check out Andy Frazer’s photography guide for this great location.

A Few Notes on Organizing Your Photos with Lightroom, and Exporting for the Web

Finding the images from Wolf Ridge in my Lightroom archive was easy — all of the shoots from Wolf Ridge have file and folder names with the same structure: wolfridge_YYYYMMDD_01.CR2. In the Grid View in Lightroom I selected Text — File Name — Starts With — wolf. Next I clicked on Attribute and selected a rating of 2 stars or better. I made a rough edit for the gallery by hitting the B key to add images for the gallery to a Quick Collection. After making the final selections, I proceeded to post-processing.

I was able to do post-processing for almost all of the images without bringing them into Photoshop. The image above was the only exception because I needed to do more complex tonal corrections for the sky and fog that required masking. When outputting for the web from Lightroom, I use a combination of capture sharpening in the Develop module (the Sharpening settings under Detail), and Output Sharpening under File — Export (typically set to Screen — Low).

A good starting place for capture sharpening with the 5D and 5D II is about 28% at .6 Radius, with Detail at 80 and Masking at 40. By zooming in to 100% view you can check the Detail and Masking settings by holding down the Option (Alt) key and dragging the sliders. The Masking control is really useful for night photography — just drag the slider until you only see star trails in the sky. This masks the areas of the sky with no detail — protecting you from enhancing any noise that may be present in the sky.

I hope you enjoy the new gallery, and that these Lightroom tips are useful!

Digital Night Photography: Test Exposures, Noise Reduction, and Image Stacking

Posted on by joe
A tree, trailer, fencing, and various geometric forms studied for 15 minutes -- by Joe Reifer

A tree, trailer, fencing, and various geometric forms studied for 15 minutes — by Joe Reifer

Technical Details
Canon 5D Mark II with an Olympus Zuiko 21mm f/3.5 lens — the lens is very small, light, sharp, and has a manual focus scale.
Long exposure noise reduction was turned off in the camera, greatly increasing productivity and battery life.

The test exposure to check the composition and histogram was 15 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 1600.
Let’s do the math: moving to f/8 is 1 stop, to f/11 is 2 stops, to ISO 800 is 3 stops, to ISO 400 is 4 stops, to ISO 200 is 5 stops.
We compensate for closing down the aperture and reducing the ISO by changing the exposure length 5 stops: 30 seconds is 1 stop, 1 minute is 2 stops, 2 minutes is 3 stops, 4 minutes is 4 stops, 8 minutes is 5 stops.
The result: 8 minutes at f/11, ISO 200.
Because the main subject is white and metallic, I protected the highlights by slightly reducing the exposure to: 7.5 minutes at f/11, ISO 160.

To achieve the 15 minute star trails in the image above, I set the Canon TC-80N3 Timer Remote to make 2 exposures in a row of 7.5 minutes at f/11, ISO 160.
I adjusted the RAW files for tone and color in Lightroom.
With both files selected in Lightroom, go to the top menu and select: Photo — Edit In — Open As Layers In Photoshop.
Next just set the top Layer to Lighten Blending Mode as pictured below to add the star trails together. Lighten Blending Mode adds anything on the top layer that’s brighter to the bottom layer – when you flip to Lighten Mode, voilà – you’ve added the star trails together.

Lighten Blending Mode in Photoshop to Stack Star Trails -- by Joe Reifer

Lighten Blending Mode in Photoshop to Stack Star Trails — by Joe Reifer

Remember: The secret to making this technique work is keeping the interval between exposures to 1 second or less. Otherwise you’ll have unsightly gaps in your star trails. I hope this useful technique saves you time and battery drain. Give it a try the next time you’re shooting at night.