1st Impressions ~ Photoshop CS4 for Photographers

”Pixel Genius is a company I have direct involvement with and is thus mentioned several times in the book.  Pixel Genius was the brain child of Jeff Schewe, Bruce Fraser, Mike Skurski, Andrew Rodney, Seth Resnick and myself - we produced plugins for Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.”  

Martin Evening, Oct., 2008.

Now, that’s truly walkin’ in tall cotton… and it’s clearly shown in Martin’s exciting new book!

How Have I Learned Photoshop?
Real-World Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw CS2 & CS3 (Fraser and Schewe) were very important for my learning steps in Photoshop.  I also bought Photokit Sharpener from Pixel Genius.
With advent of CS4, I questioned the need to get RWAPCR CS4.  With Evening's new CS4 book (it's been in my library ~ 36 hours; I’m scoping out image sequences), I hoped it would contain most of what I could've learned from RWAPCR CS4.  However, Evening only discusses changes through ACR 5.0. 

Evening’s New Book
For me, its 2 hours of movies about new features which emphasize why CS4 is a significant upgrade.  After acclimating to Kelby’s well-written Lightroom 2 book, these movies quickly show me what I need and where to go in the book for continued growth into CS4.  To hedge slightly, examples where Evening might use 7 curve adjustments with associated masks are rare.  I'm betting that an in-depth, penetrating, and more informative 'pixel mafia’s' influence will also continue to dominate, step-by-step, in Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers - Ultimate Workshop, Schewe and Evening.
With Lightroom 2 experience, I purchased CS4 to use Adobe Camera Raw’s 5.X local adjustment brushes, content aware scaling, and advanced masking.  I'd read early but limited reviews of What's New in CS4.  Last night's brief perusal of the Adjustment Panel convinced me Evening is entitled to be among 'pixel mafia'. 
Adjustment layers are now managed via an Adjustments Panel. This new setup is a huge deal!  Doing away with modality of Adjustments dialogs really sings… modality means the seemingly prolonged series of keystrokes to make a CS3 curve change occur.  Now, you can now add adjustment layers with immediate access to adjustment settings.  Imagine you have three different adjustment layers applied to an image. As you tweak adjustments for an adjustment layer you can also go directly to Layers panel and adjust layer blending mode. The scope to work faster and more efficiently will definitely enhance your workflow, leaving more time to be out shooting.

Hot Stuff
For me, some of the meat of this book lies from pages 292-310 in Image Editing Essentials.  Evening covers Curves Adjustment Layers, Choose a Larger Sample Size, and Targeted Adjustment Tool.
When you click on the targeted adjustment tool and move the cursor to the document window, you can parametrically modify the curve.  What does that mean?
If you drag the mouse pointer up-and-down, it will simultaneously move the newly added curve point up and down.  So, you can easily make specific tonal areas lighter or darker.  When you've increased the sample size, this makes an incredible slider application for adding local, nondestructive contrast right on your image. 

Mask Panel
Now, for some of the potatoes!  Pages 330-337 provide a brief introduction.  Although there are eight controls on the mask panel, for fine masking of windblown hair, etc., the newly enhanced Color Range is perhaps most important.  While not as powerful in CS3, a reinvigorated color range now enhances your capabilities.  Evening shows a challenging long exposure of light reflection on a picture of tunnels.  The color range mask creates a very good control.
A sailing ship mast against the azure sky, with its complex guylines and halyards, is way more interesting!  On the video and pages 440-443, Evening takes Color Range masking to a limit.  By compositing two images, he places dramatic clouds behind the mast - leading you to wonder at the seeming simplicity of such a complicated composition.

Attention to Lightroom 2

"Ever since Adobe Photoshop Lightroom made its first appearance as a beta product, I've been using Lightroom in studio and on location.  I now use it all the time to import images from cards as well as when shooting in tethered mode.  I've stopped using Bridge completely at the import stage.  Lightroom cataloging features allow me to search and navigate master original files." 
After making this statement, Evening then describes an import workflow for Lightroom in 4 pages.  Otherwise, he devotes many pages to Bridge, which he admits was klunky for CS3.

There Are Always Cons...
I like to scan a book before I start diving in to read.  To do that, I always want an accurate Table of Contents.
While searching for Targeted Adjustment Tool, let me put this in a simple way, "Martin, you and your guys didn't put a lot of attention to a really up-to-date Grade A table of contents.  I spent a couple of hours waffling around before I finally settled down to just read the book - rather than quickly going to the new areas which would enhance my growth."
At 677 pages – this book’s like a 2nd hand 5# weight (actual – 3.5#).  So, while inculcating exciting insightful tidbits, you’re also strengthening that throwin’ arm.
BTW – better have a rectangular magnification glass; some of the images from Photoshop are difficult to read.

Seriously…
Pathways of Light contains a section called Brain Food.  Brain Food is inspired by a simple fact; without a good book describing how to use it, new software can really be a real p__ i__ t__ a__ to learn.

Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers has become my choice to learn CS4... there is a lot of in-depth information I did not cover.

The Future of HDR – III

Blue Mountain

©Joe Bridwell

The direct sunset already gave a splendid HDR ~ two planes crossed above the clouds. But, simply by turning south, the sky was in half tones. The almost shimmering distant mountain reminds one of scenes in the movie Cold Mountain.

HDR (high dynamic range) Has Been on My Mind Lately...

There's controversy over how your workflow should go when you put together an HDR image. There are different amounts of EV range to capture, there's the choice of which photos to use for the best 32-bit HDR image, there's the choice of which software to use to create that 32-bit image, and, then there is the choice of how you tone map for the final image to please your emotional palette.

You ask, "Well, isn't there one simple way?"

Not really; for various reasons, neither your eye nor your camera can see the full range of color available. While it's clear the camera doesn't have the range of your eye, there are some questions about what your brain automatically does to a scene before/as it stores it in your memory. Without getting into all the biophysical reasons for that statement, let's just discuss limitations from software's viewpoint.

HDR Approaches

Let me take three photographers, John Doogan, Matt Kloskowski, and Tom Till, and highlight differences in their HDR approaches.

Doogan (Fellow New Zealand Institute of Professional Photographers and Adobe Ambassador) uses Lightroom 2 and CS4. John selects images in Lightroom, performs emerge to HDR, then tone maps in CS4. John addresses some of the subtleties an HDR image can capture while showing advanced workflow in CS4. Some of his efforts suggest other intriguing ways one may think of additional steps to really enhance the tone map image. John’s example shows an EV range of -2.64, 0, +2.64 (Calculated by CS4).

Kloskowski (NAPP) uses Photomatix Pro. Matt selects images in Lightroom, uses the Lightroom/Photomatix plug-in to create the 32-bit image, then tone maps in Capture NX2. Photomatix converts the 32-bit to the 16 bit image. Matt will do a little bit of correction in Lightroom but prefers capture NX2 for his final tone mapping. Matt shot 5 images, then just used -2, 0, +2. I think Matt is a bit overzealous when he decries, "Everybody uses Photomatix..."

Till (Till Galleries, Moab) has only recently begun HDR and promises more discussions on his presently in frequent blog. Tom prefers 0 and -2, -4,\ EV images, but has been known to use a 4EV ND filter as well. At present, Tom has not given a full-blown blog indication of his preferred HDR workflow. However, Tom is well known around our planet for some of his incredibly splendid Four Corners sunrise/sunset shots.

I've used both Photomatix Pro, Lightroom 2, CS3, and (for me, soon to be) CS4 for my HDR imaging. At present, I'm using Lightroom 2 and CS3. With the enhanced flexibility of nondestructive local adjustment brushes in Lightroom (and CS4), I can let LR2 and CS3 create the 16 bit image, then do some processing in Lightroom. Because I spent the time and energy to learn CS3, I can instinctively appreciate superior advantages of the coveted CS4. Clearly, that's the reason to elevate to the level of CS4...

About Blue Mountain…

The image above is a sample -1, 0, +2 EV range, brought into LR2, Merge to HDR in CS3, return 16 bit tif to LR2, and successively tone map with local adjustment brushes. I followed the basic Adobe Camera Raw workflow advocated by Bruce Fraser in Real World Adobe Camera Raw for Photoshop CS3. In essence, Bruce said, ”Go down the Develop module ~ tweaking sliders in Basic, Tone Curves, Detail (Landscape Sharpening using preset [particularly using the Masking] and Chromatic Abberation), before finalizing more subtle changes in HSL (Hue, Saturation, and Luminosity).

What are the advantages of this approach?

This approach does away with some of the superfluous histograms produced by Detail Enhancer in Photomatix Pro. Superfluous; DE will take a normal bimodal distribution for your sunset histogram then create its own shape - creating an 'overblown' HDR effect. It often creates sky halos.

The LRx/CSx approach lets you work with raw files, PSDs, and ultimately JPEG's in Lightroom. It does away with major histogram redistribution. It lets you take serious advantage of a much deeper range of brush capabilities provided by Photoshop for some serious, yet subtle tone mapping.

Enjoy...