From the D700 NEF, through LRv2.3, now a custom presetit still needs work
I've been told I need a blog.
I've been told it's an asset to reveal how much (or how little) I know about my profession. Ha.
I had thought that just putting images up would be sufficient evidence that I know what I'm doing with a camera and light (and that other stuff in a photograph). But no.
There is a lot more to it. And that, apparently, is the valuable stuff. Like the hours I spend with software. And hardware. And theoretical positioning with other artists as to the relevance of what we do, and how it is perceived.
Apparently, this stuff matters too.
Well I know it matters to me. But does it matter to anyone else? And is anyone else reading this? Apparently not. Or maybe you are looking, but are shy of the "comment" button. I mean, I rarely say anything... why should you (if you're even here)?
So it begins. I trash the concept of a blog with images and minimal words, to join the mass of private publicity in the excessively obese (that's redundant) blog-o-sphere.
I will try to stay thin and focused. And not be stupid on the internet.
Where to start.
OK, here you go: I've been shifting pointedly back into duotone work.
Having left that behind in my cobweb covered darkroom, it restarted with the Nikon D700, which has capabilities that offered black and white digital capture at a quality my personal standards could accept. It has excellent high sensitivity resolution, tonality and focusing all in one package, with a neat built in capability to build my own profile using color contrast filters and duotoning of the images. Pretty exciting.
Then I discovered the down side. The profile only sticks to a jpg. The NEF (raw file) instantly becomes a color image when opened in Photoshop's ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) and in Nikon View if you want to make any changes to it's saturation (which is not one of the adjustable parameters of the in-camera profile).
I am working entirely in Lightroom (v2.3CR) or Photoshop (still CS3) and am not going to spend a hundred bucks on the creatively talented and cute but insane Capture NX2 (I've had girl friends who were like that. No thanks). It pains me that Nikon won't make the immediately previous version of their flagship conversion software compatible with their newest $3000 camera. Life is tough. I go to Adobe and keep my hundred bucks. Neither will I shell out $200 for Silver efex, which is fun, but not that fun. I'll look at it again when I have money (not holding breath).
So I have been using LR's presets (I've made about 20 of them) to customize my duotoned imagery. The in camera jpg acts as a proof, that lets me assess an image's effectiveness as a duotone. I have not been able to force myself to settle for a more compressed or smaller jpg (coming soon to a mindset near me), so my back up protocol expands hugely in time and bytes. I do need to work on that. This issue is compounded by my new affection for the DNG format, which is tempered by my distrust of corporate stability (where did that come from?). So now I have JPG, DNG and NEFs of all duotone images and NEFs and DNGs of all images. sigh.
So there's my topic for the next entry: file formats and image backup storage. sigh... t
3 comments:
Tom
Nice writing. Fun to read. A couple of questions.
Why would you worry about NX2 when you are using Lightroom 2?
You mentioned Silver Efex. Have you used any of NIK's software? I upgraded from Color Efex to the whole suite for 200. Love their stuff.
Dick Metcalf
Hey Dick! Thanks for stopping by CM. I'm not used to anyone actually reading this stuff.
As for NX, I like a few things about it. The control point feature is really remarkable. It was difficult to handle and quirky in NX but appreciably better in NX2 (trial). Also, NX is quite faithful to your in-camera (Nikon) settings, unlike Adobe's products, which encourages the photographer (me) to pay attention at the time of exposure to such niceties as WB, color rendering and tonal compression. And it saves some time spent just recouping that effort in PS or LR. But it's really the Control Point feature that I liked best.
I did try Silver Efex and it's way cool, especially their Structure control that creates "granularity", and the ability to create and save presets easily, like LR. All the presets they offer make for excellent starting points for customizing your own.
If I ever get some excess money in my pocket again, I'll try Viveza, now available as a Lightroom plug in. Silver Efex seems to be tied exclusively to PS... maybe that will be offered as a LR plug it by the time I am ready to buy it. PS is increasingly becoming a finishing tool for me, useful for work that only layers and masking can accomplish.
Again, thanks for visiting this blog and for your feed back. Hope to see you in April... t
Enjoyed reading this muchly. Looking forward to more.
Post a Comment