Tag Archives: software

Experimenting With Enhance Levels in Lightroom

In one of the bigger updates of Lightroom and Photoshop, Adobe introduced the Enhance functions adding either resolution or noise reduction.  The noise reduction has been very effective for some of the shots I have taken with very high ISO levels.  I decided to edit a shot with varying levels of noise reduction to see how things look.  Since I had a bunch of cheetah shots taken in low light, I figured that would be a good subject.

You can vary the noise reduction level from 1-100.  I made five edits with one unchanged and the remainder at 25, 50, 75 and 100.  I then layered them in to one file to show the comparison.  The unchanged edit is on the right while the 100 noise reduction is one the left.  I felt like my previous experience had been that a level around 50 was a good outcome for much of what I had shot.  When I looked at these results, I again concluded that the middle level was the best compromise.  The 100 was just too much and 75 looked like things were a bit smudged.  You can judge what you think.  I shall experiment with levels each time I use it but it does give me a good idea of what to start with.

iPhone RAW Image Exposures

When RAW capture first became available on my phone, I started to use it.  Initially, I had to use a third party camera app which was fine but it did have some quirks about it and some things that just didn’t work right, despite some extensive communication with the developer.  Then the camera app of the phone got updated to allow RAW capture and I have been using that ever since.  There is something very strange about it, though.  When I import the images in to Lightroom, they are always about one stop overexposed.  I am curious whether this is a function of the raw format for Apple in order to preserve details in the shadows or whether it is a weirdness with my phone.  Included are two images – one with the base settings after import and one edited.  This is representative of what I get.  It doesn’t hurt the end result but it is rather strange.  Anyone have similar results?

Playing With an Old CRJ Moon Shot

For some reason, I recently came back to an old photo I took of a Delta Connection CRJ900 as it climbed out of O’Hare.  It had climbed right by the moon as it was rising in the eastern sky towards the end of the day.  I had liked the photo at the time but now I was thinking about how to do a better job of editing it.  Now I have been using the masking tools in Lightroom a lot more, I figured I could take different approaches for the jet and the background.  The results were a lot better than my original efforts and I quite like how it now looks.

Will Rolla Replace Zwift?

Since I got a smart trainer for cycling, I have been using Zwift as my app for training rides.  I have been very happy with the way it works and find it a great tool for training as I can do some pretty long rides on it without getting bored.  I have done up to two hours which would have been inconceivable on older trainers.  I did see a video recently of a new software tool that could provide similar functionality called Rolla.  It is free for the time being, so I decided to try it out.  Will it be a suitable replacement for Zwift?

One of the things I did like the look of was the graphics output.  Zwift has a slightly cartoonish styling which doesn’t bother me at all – indeed, I quite like the odd things that they throw in like a bear falling out of a tree or a stag by the road – but having more realistic scenery was of interest.  Rolla looked like it would be more like riding in real locations.  As a new app, I knew it wouldn’t have extensive scenery databases yet, but they could be useful to try out.Having used it a few times, now, I have come across a bunch of things I didn’t like.  First, the software doesn’t pick up my cadence from the trainer.  I can come across the top of a climb and start speeding down the other side but my cadence on the trainer doesn’t change.  It isn’t reading the cadence either so the data on screen and my data download has nothing of use.  This is not helpful for training my cadence nor for having a realistic riding experience.  I also had issues uploading to Strava.  It now works but there is no way to get it to recognize rides already completed.  The gradient is not connected so my trainer does not respond to changes in slope like it does on Zwift.  That physical feedback of gradient change is very helpful, particularly as slope changes are not very visually obvious.  The rider symbol looks weird too with an odd rolling motion of the hips.  It’s not as bad as the runners I pass, though.  They look like the T1000 from Terminator!  Lastly, sometimes it just seems to have you riding off the side of the road for no obvious reason.All of this is to say it is a long way from being a replacement for Zwift.  It is not going to be something I use for training for now but, with some time to develop it and implement new functionality (plus clean up some of the buggier elements) might make that change.  I would also prefer to just use it on the iPad rather than having to have the phone app open along with the iPad to control things.  We shall see.  In the meantime, Zwift will remain my go to.

 

Lightroom Noise Reduction Update Testing

One of the software tools that I find a lot of people talking about these days is DeNoise from Topaz.  I have never been terribly bothered by noise in my images.  Modern cameras do a pretty remarkable job of handling noise and, for most usage purposes, the noise is not really an issue if it is there.  I have posted my efforts with PureRAW in its various forms where I have tried it out to see how the noise reduction comes out and, while I have seen strengths and weaknesses in it, I have never seen it as something I needed to spend on.

Lightroom Classic had one of its periodic updates recently.  The big new feature was their own denoise functionality.  Much like my experimentation with PureRAW, it analyzes the shot and creates a new DNG file with the noise suppressed.  I was curious to see how it would perform and, seeing as it is included in the price of my subscription, I have it anyway.  I decided to take some shots I had recently used for the PureRAW3 trial I had done and compare with the Lightroom version.

It defaulted to a 50 level of noise reduction.  I don’t know whether this is a percentage and what of but it is a scale so I played with it.  I did some at 50 and some at 75 to see whether more aggressive noise reduction had detrimental effects on other parts of the image.  Comparing these things and then sharing the results is a touch tricky so I have created a single image from four layers.  They are the original Lightroom develop settings, the PureRAW3 version, the 75 denoise settings and the 50 denoise settings.  I mask them to make the image into four sections.  Then, to make it useful on here, I have zoomed in to show the borders between them to provide some sort of comparison.

The PureRAW3 result is very aggressive on noise reduction.  However, I find it can make some odd artifacts in the images where details were not that clear to begin with.  The 75 setting in Lightroom provided a very similar level of noise reduction to PureRAW3.  It is slightly noisier but barely enough to matter.  A setting of 50 does show more noise.  It is still a significant improvement over the basic Camera Raw settings and very usable.

What do I conclude from all of this?  First, as I have said before when testing the PureRAW trials, it provides some interesting results but it is not relevant to enough of my work to matter to me sufficient for me to spend a bunch of money on buying it.  Having denoise in Lightroom now provides me with a very similar option but within the existing price I am paying for Lightroom.  Therefore, I will make use of it when the situation dictates.  It would be a regular part of my workflow because really high ISO shots are only an occasional thing for me but having it there when I want it will be handy.

Experimenting with PureRAW3

This blog includes a very infrequent series of posts reviewing the processing powers of PureRAW.  The third version of this raw image processor has just been released and I downloaded the trial to see how it performs.  I was impressed by what the previous version did to clean up some high ISO shots but the need was limited and the price was high enough that I didn’t see the point in signing up for it.  I was curious as to whether the third version would change my mind.

When I download one of these trials, I always try to avoid installing it until I have time to play with it.  The trial last 30 days so I want to make sure I make good use of the time.  Once I got around to installing it, I put it to work.  I was disappointed to find the trial was limited to 20 images at a time which is a little restrictive but, for the purposes of evaluating it, I could work around this.  I had two things I wanted to do.  First, I wanted to convert some shots that I had previously tried for PureRAW2 to see how different they were.  Second, I had some recent night shots which I also wanted to try.

So, how did it perform?  Results were mixed.  I found the conversion process was quick sometimes and would slow down or stop on others.  This was annoying but I suspect is something that they will fix before too long so I wasn’t that worried.  What I was surprised about was that, when starting the process in Lightroom, the new DNGs will be reimported into Lightroom.  However, this was unbelievably slow.  I would set it off, the conversion would finish and then, a long time later, they would suddenly get added.  Again, something that is probably going to get fixed but bloody annoying in the mean time.

As for the output, I was quite amazed by the results.  I will show here some of the Lightroom edits along with PureRAW2 and PureRAW3 versions of the files.  As you can see, the latest version really does clean up images a lot.  However, I don’t think it is all good.  Some of the shots feel like they have been over sharpened and look too crunchy.  Also, the algorithm seems to get imaginative when it comes to lettering on airframes.  Some of the results have created shapes that just are not there in the original shot.  For some shots, this might not be an issue but, when something is supposed to be recognizable, the odd artifacts show up conspicuously.  If the shot had been soft and noisy, you wouldn’t have worried but, because it is supposed to be clear and sharp, the weird results stand out.

Is it worth it?  Not for me.  I used it on some more normal exposures and couldn’t really see much benefit.  Certainly not enough to make the effort worth it.  For high noise, it does provide some nice results and some odd side effects but, I don’t shoot enough of them to make that really worthwhile.  For now, it shall sit in the interesting but not interesting enough category.  Maybe we shall have the fourth installment of this series when PureRAW4 comes out!

Delta/LATAM Comes in After Dark

Delta picked up a few ex-LATAM Airbus A350-900s as part of that airlines restructuring during the downturn in the airline business caused by the pandemic.  They went initially in to storage and then have been progressively moved to Singapore for updating to the Delta configuration.  Seattle has been the location for them to come through on their way to Asia.  I have missed a few but one was due to come through when I could see it.  Sadly, it departed a little late from Victorville and was showing due in after dark.

Since it was an unusual movement, I figured it was still worth the effort.  I would use the 500mm since it has a wider aperture and test the low light capabilities of the camera to the full.  It still meant some very low shutter speeds but I let the tech compensate for my low skill levels.  I was pleasantly surprised by how well some of them came out given the lack of light.  Since this shoot, I did also reprocess with PureRAW3 and this improved the quality of the shot further.

Air Canada Special Early Sunday Departure And Lightroom Masking Options

Air Canada brings a pair of A220-300s in to SEA each evening – one from Toronto and one from Montreal.  They leave the following morning with the Toronto flight heading out early and the Montreal flight following a couple of hours later.  The Toronto flight one weekend was the TCA special aircraft so I decided to head out and catch it departing.

The day started very overcast and gloomy but there was a sign that things were going to get better.  This did happen but things were still not great when the jet departed.  The light had improved a bit but the cloud was still there.  When looking at the shots, I figured it was time to make use of the masking options that Lightroom offers.  The latest update has improved their usability somewhat.  First I drop the exposure of the shot overall to get the sky looking roughly how I want it.  Then I select the aircraft suing the Subject option.  It does a pretty reasonable job but I do then refine it with an addition brush to bring in the bits it has missed and a subtract brush to take out the detail areas where the mask has overlapped.

The new option is the click on this mask and choose the Duplicate and Invert option.  This gives me a sky selection that matches what I have got for the aircraft.  For the sky, I can work on the white balance to bring it back to something more cool which suits the overall look of the shot.  I can similarly work on the white balance for the jet to make the reds pop more in the livery.  The exposure can be brought up a bit with the shadows helping a little while bringing the blacks down while improve the contrast.

All of this is pretty straightforward.  One nice feature of the latest update is that you can actually apply the same settings to multiple images.  The brush adjustments are not going to work well for this so it is best to do the overall selections and sync to the various images and then, if a shot is worthy of further work, the refining of the mask can be done afterwards.  If you know which shot is the best, you can just focus on that one.

Focus Stacking – Photoshop Versus Helicon

I have played around with focus stacking a lot in recent years.  Having a macro lens and a pandemic has given me plenty to opportunity to try stuff out.  I was reading something along about stacking and it mentioned software call Helicon which is said was the standard for stacking software.  I have been using Photoshop to date and, while it does a pretty good job, you do get some odd artifacts sometimes.  I decided to download a trial of Helicon and see how it does.

I waited to use the trial until I had a bit of time available.  The trial last 30 days but I wanted to make good use of it.  Once I had installed it, I went through all of my focus stacks and ran through the software.  It has a Lightroom plugin which made it easy enough to use.  I found it was not so happy with some of my handheld stacks where alignment became an issue.  Photoshop coped with that well.  For the better planned shots, it worked a lot better.  Overall, it seemed to do pretty well.

However, there was something that it struggled with.  I had been playing with some shots of a memory card holder that I had shot when I had nothing better to do.  Photoshop stacked them without any problem.  The shots were in color but everything was either black or white.  When Helicon tried stacking them, it introduced some strange purple coloration.  I have no idea why it did this.  It was almost like a chromatic aberration filter in reverse.  I suspect there is a way to understand the more detailed settings and fix this but it was a weird outcome.  Since I want something simple that basically works, this made me decide that buying the full version wasn’t worth it.  I have already paid for Photoshop so I shall stick with that.

Lightroom’s New Content Aware Remove Tool

The latest version of Lightroom Classic was recently rolled out.  It comes with a bunch of new additions and refinements.  The one that caught my eye was the addition of content aware remove.  There was already the cloning tool and the healing tools built in and these could do a lot of what you might want.  However, these have now been supplemented by content aware removal.  The tool is really straightforward to use but you can customize it if you like, both by choosing what area to use as a reference and also the ability to get it to try again if you don’t like the result by hitting Refresh.

The thing I wanted to try out was using it to remove power lines.  These can sometimes be a bit of a pain when taking shots but, rather than use an aviation shot with some power lines crossing it, I happened to be looking at a photo I took in California of some railroad which had a bunch of lines strung across it.  I wasn’t bothered about making a great shot.  I was just interested in what the tool would do with the power lines.  It was surprising effective.  Too close an inspection would show the flaws but, if you look at the overall image, it came out quite well with very little effort.  I have the before and after shots here for comparison.