MAKING BIG PRINTS

Monjeau Meadows, Lincoln National Forest, New Mexico 18 October 1996

I posted this image over on Facebook and it got a lot of "likes" and comments. Thought I'd paste it here, also. As I mentioned on FB, after scanning the 8x10 negative, and after viewing the small proof print (I make a small reference proof of all the negatives I scan) I like what I saw so much that I decided go ahead and see what if it would translate up to a larger size. Sometime images that look good in a small print loose something when printed big. My mentor, Oliver Gagliani, would have said, OK, print it small, nothing wrong with small prints. I'm limited by my printer to 17" wide paper, so out came the box of Ilford Gold Fiber Silk 17x22" paper. It printed 15x19" on that size paper at 360 ppi. Could have easily printed it on 24" wide paper....sigh....if I have an Epson 7880 or an Epson 7900 printer. It would even print bigger had I scanned it at a higher resolution. I have been scanning the 8x10 negatives at 720 ppi. One of these days, I'll own a 24" wide printer. That said, I gotta' say the prints from the Epson 3800 are spectacular, can't image they'd be any better out of the 3880.

CAMPING HAPPILY

My driveway in central Massachusetts, December 12, 2008 -- yes, we suffered through the ice storm. Our power went out Thursday evening and we slept not a wink what with the limbs falling from the trees with a loud crack and then banging against the house. We took at least six direct hits and countless close encounters. Luckily very little damage was done. That's me with chain saw in hand getting soaking wet while cutting and dragging cut pieces to the pile out by the curb. With the help of our neighbor (in red jacket), Ellen and I worked until my chain saw decided to quit, and the neighbor's ran out of gas. It was late in the day anyway. The next day my daughter and her boyfriend came by and the four of use worked on cutting and dragging the stuff from the rest of the yard. Ellen and I, along with Dawg Sadie, spent Friday night in the house without power -- meaning no heat, but decided to move in with friends in the city until power was restored. It wasn't until this past Monday in the late afternoon when the guys with their bucket truck from the power company rolled down our street and turned on our block. Welcome relief to back in our own bed. This was our first experience of being forced out of our home due to a weather event, or for any other reason for that matter. It is very stressful. We lost all of our food in the refrigerator and some of the frozen foods in the freezers. And to top it all off, I caught a bad cold from working in the cold and wet for two days. And that my friends is why I have not blogged for the past week or so. It snowed about two inches yesterday morning which requred me to bring the snowblower around from its summer storage, and tomorrow morning we are due a nor-easter snow event. Last I heard we are in the 6-10" belt. Oh, Joy.

GETTING IT THERE -- THE IMAGE, THAT IS.

Mertens, Texas 2008

I realized that I tread dangerously toward boredom, but some might find it interesting to read about my workflow of this image. What with all the rage about Lightroom and ARC for RAW converstion, I think it worthwhile to mention PhaseOne's Capture One 4. I own a legit copy of Lightroom (LR) and have even updated it to v1.3 because it covers conversion for my Canon 40D, however, it is not my favorite program. Yes, its RAW converter is great and works well. But I have to tell you that I don't like the way it handles files. If for some reason you need/want to move a file to another location, LR acts as if you have committed some unforgiveable crime and will tell you the files are lost. Another example: I had d/l'd all my CF cards -- all six of them, about 10-gigs of images -- from my recent Texas trip onto my laptop and Passport drive (backup). When I up/l'd from the Passport to my desktop, left out about about 25 files by accident (didn't get highlighted for copy), and only realized I had done so AFTER processing everything through LR. So I go back, add the missing files via "explorer" to the correct folder, and try to look at them in LR. Now the original files in that folder have become "lost" according to LR, and I have yet to find a way to get them recognized by LR again. It sees the added files, but not the older files. GRRRRR The only reason I have LR to begin with is because Adobe bought Pixmantec/RAWShooter. I was a confirmed RAWShooter Premium (RS) devotee and was extremely disappointed when Adobe pulled it from the market.

Exit LR, and d/l the trial copy of Capture One 4. I have used C-1 in the past, it is on my old laptop (now owned by my daughter), but that version C-1 (3.7) doesn't cover the 40D. C-1 is very close to what RS was in terms of ease of use and functions, and with v4 it has added many new functions as well as a whole new look. Surprise! It has the same gray background as does LR and Aperture (Mac only program). To make this a short story, I'm in love again. C-1 4 does it for me. It doesn't care where you put the images...amen. I think that if, I SAY IF, I were a working photographer doing weddings, events, product illustration, so on, so forth, I would probably use LR, but it is just too much program for the small amout of work someone like me does on a weekly/monthly basis. C-1 4 is only $99 and I think a real bargain.

The first Mertens image above is as the Canon 40D saw it, shot in RAW at ISO 400, 10-22mm Canon EFs lens, 1/160 at f/6/3, set at 21mm. I must admit that I was shooting in the rain, while I checked the histogram, I didn't check it closely -- me and the camera were getting wet. Normally I would have given this image at least another stop of exposure.

The second image is after RAW processing. In C-1 4, I increased the exposure, open the shadows with the "shadows" slider, white balanced off the broad front of that big overhang. It didn't need anything else. No noise suppression, but sharpening is set at about 25%. That's it. C-1 4 did the rest.

The third image has been finalized in PS CS2. I started by putting on a grid, select "all" and using the transform "distort" tool to straighten/level the building. Then I used the "shadow/highlight" tool to open the shadows. Slight dodging and buring -- took the pavement down a little, and opened the colors of the pump. Cropped slightly. Finally added a color balance layer to tweak the colors. And that's it. Of course, I downsized it, sharpened it, and saved as a JPEG. I spent all of 10-minutes getting it ready for the web.

The above is typical for me. I rarely find need to work images beyond the basics. There are times I will add a curves layer to further adjust the tones of the image, sometime I might even have a second curve layer to work a specific tonal area, or to just increase the tone separation/internat contrast of the image. Internal contrast can also be boosted via USM with a high radius (around 60) and percentage from 10-20%. I give a lot of credit to better sensors with more dynamic range, and to much improved RAW converters. I work in Adobe RGB (1998) color space, and my system calibration is maintained regularly. Core to this work flow is my Samsung 214T monitor. Yes, I use a PC -- HP with AMD 64 Athlon that I've had for over three years now. Before the month is out I'm buy a new box -- working on the details now. Tomorrow I'll be back to posting old Texas places.