While I was having computer problems recently I had to work in ‘Raw+Jpeg’ mode, and I chose the highest possible jpeg quality from the Nikon, ‘Fine’. And they are certainly pretty good files. But I was also having problems working with them on an uncalibrated screen and using Photoshop rather than Lightroom.
I tried to calibrate the screen visually, using one of the sites on the web that offers suitable graphics, but it wasn’t very satisfactory. I decided that my best approach was to rely mainly on Photoshop to make the judgements, keeping my own tweaks down to a minimum.
This also speeded up processing. I suppose I could have automated the process, but soon a set series of keystrokes became wired into my brain. ‘Alt+E, V, Enter’ to change from Adobe RGB to sRGB, then ‘Alt+I, A, U’ on the outdated version of Photoshop on the laptop for Auto-contrast. Next came Ctrl+M, which took me into the curves dialogue, where I used the mid-tone dropper to set the colour balance on a neutral in the image. Though it isn’t always possible to find a neutral, and sometimes it was a matter of trying a few different patches of the image until the result looked about right. And a little tweak of the curve produced a result with what looked like appropriate brightness and contrast.
Having OK’d this, then came the rather riskier business of trying to guess whether I’d got things about right, and sometimes fiddling a little with Brightness and Contrast, adjustments I normally try to avoid. It was hard not to try and alter the colour balance a little, and although I knew I wasn’t seeing it correctly. But I also know that having things a little on the warm side is always more acceptable than the opposite.
Here’s one of the results:
It isn’t too bad, though it does have something of a colour cast – I obviously added a little too much yellow. Perhaps most obvious in the sunlight grass.
It was a difficult day for lighting, photographing the Green Party Photocall What Are You Afraid of Boys? in a shady corner of College Green, next to the Houses of Parliament, sunlit in the background at right. And at the left, the building has completely lost detail in the jpeg.
I’ve now been able to process the raw file, and to make it a little easier to compare I’ve adjusted it to a similar colour balance, though I would normally have left it more neutral.
Overall the image from Raw is a little less contrasty and less saturated colour, and the shadow areas are lighter, but part of the difference is also because I’ve made some use of the Lightroom local adjustment brush. That could have improved the jpeg too, but would not have restored the missing detail in the blown-out highlights.
Looking at the full-size images, there does seem to be just a little more detail in the raw file. Although I think the jpeg version of the jacket that Green Party leader Natalie Bennett is wearing actually looks better for being a little darker, I think the raw version is probably more accurate.
As I stood there taking a whole series of photographs of her, I was hoping that she would make the same expression as her portrait on the poster behind her, but she didn’t quite do so, keeping her head more upright. But I was worried by that picture of her, as it didn’t quite look like her. What it lacks is the determination that I think shows in her jaw when she talks.
I stood there taking pictures wondering whether it was digital retouching or just careful lighting and choice of view that had caused the difference and made her and Caroline Lucas look rather more like a toothpaste advert than real people. But somehow it was a look that shouted PR and advertising and didn’t at all fit with my vision of the Green Party. More like the old politics we need to get away from.
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My London Diary : Buildings of London : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage
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