tlabranche
2014-08-06, 06:08 PM
I was asked by a good friend, who is just starting out with spotting, to help him with some post processing. I figured I would share the screenshot tutorial that I made for him. I included every step that I take when processing an aviation shot. I hope it helps others as well, as there are always folks who want extra tips.
The programs I am using are: Adobe Camera RAW 8.1, Photoshop CS6, and Topaz Labs DeNoise V5.
The first step I take is to open the image up in Adobe's Camera RAW. This is where I make my initial adjustments as well as batch edit if the lighting was the same in each shot. To get into Camera RAW, you can do it one of two ways. The first is if you shot your photo in RAW, simply click the image in your folder. Photoshop will automatically open it up in Camera RAW. The second is through Adobe Bridge or Mini Bridge. Right click the thumbnail and click "Open in Camera RAW."
Step 1: Here is the image, right off of the camera. Overall, it came out pretty good. I always use single point focus and try to expose for the brightest part of the fuselage. It needs massive leveling, but otherwise, the histogram shows a pretty decently exposed photo. If you have never used Camera RAW before, below the image is a small description of the sliders, and what they do.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5579/14823875866_ca645e54a4_h.jpg
White Balance: This is where you can make your image look cooler by adding more blues or warmer by adding yellows. Most cameras do a great job of accurate white balance by default. I never touch this for aviation shooting.
Exposure: This will slide the histogram to the right. Make sure you have the two triangles on either side of the histogram checked. This will show you red and blue clipping. Red is for overexposed, and blue for underexposed. Right out of the camera, you'll notice that I have some overexposed pixels on the leading edge of the wing.
Contrast: The image is a tad flat. Meaning, the blacks aren't as black as they could be. Adding more contrast will make the blacks blacker and the highlights brighter. You want to be careful how much contrast you add.
Highlights: If you have red clipping on your image, pull the highlight slider to the left. It will try to recover the lost textures if there is information in the file. This will cause a flattening effect of colors.
Whites: This will allow you to set your white point. I rarely touch this slider in my aviation photography. I do use it a lot in other types of photography.
Shadows: If you notice your shadow areas are lost, slide this to the right. Photoshop will do a great job of filling in the shadows. This was 'fill light' in older versions of PS; however, it has gotten far better at only affecting the shadow areas.
Blacks: If you want to give your blacks (tires, engine cowlings...) more contrast, slide this to the left. If you have the blue clipping on, slide it left until you barely see blue clipping appearing.
Clarity: This adds micro contrast. If you slide this too far to the right, it will give it a semi-HDR effect. Use it very carefully for aviation shots. It will bring out small details like fuselage dimples and dirt on a white fuselage.
Vibrance and Saturation: I will tend to give my images just a touch of vibrance depending on what lens I used. I never add saturation.
Step 2: Here is my image after I made some initial adjustments. I bumped the contrast to 30, pulled my highlights down to -54 to recover the nose, slid my blacks just until the main gear had a tiny bit of clipping, and bumped up the shadows on the fuselage and vibrance.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3854/14843772261_d331180273_h.jpg
Step 3: Time to level! Click on the top of the bar for the ruler tool. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE CAPS LOCK ON. This will allow you to fine tune where the ruler starts. Draw your line along something you know to be horizontal and level. I chose a railing on top of the terminal building.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3836/14846840925_98a91584b0_h.jpg
Put your curser on the corner of the box. You'll get a curved arrow. This will allow you to finely tune your leveling. Here, I am making sure that both my vertical lines are horizontal lines are level.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3844/14866722023_137dff9b42_h.jpg
Press 'Enter' or 'Return' when you're done and your image will automatically level itself to your specifications and it'll crop away the excess that was lost - if any.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3910/14660152890_30108a05e7_h.jpg
Step 4: The last step in Camera RAW is noise removal. Click the triangle icon to bring up the noise sliders. Zoom in to 100%. Noise amount is based on your ISO number and your camera type. Full frame cameras will have a lot less noise than a crop body. I shot this at ISO 250. I typically start at sliding the luminance to 20 - 25 and see what that gives me. I will do one final noise removal in the last step, so I don't want to go crazy here. I only mess with the luminance slider here. Click the Preview box to see what the effect is doing. Click Open Object when ready.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3925/14823867916_fccb016802_h.jpg
Step 5: The main Photoshop workspace will open your image. The first thing to do is to duplicate your layer. Press Control + J to do this. If you screw up, you can just delete the layer copy, and not the original image.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3860/14844389874_a4c130bad9_h.jpg
Step 6: Crop your image. Press the C key, or click on the side to bring up the crop tool. I always crop my aviation shots at 1600x1067 if I am uploading to a database or my Flickr page. I set the crop to Custom and set the pixels I want. Make sure the View is set to 'Grid.' You can now crop your image. Use the grid to center your photo in the frame. For this shot, I will place the center horizontal line on the nose of the plane.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5556/14846834135_ff6e853e09_h.jpg
After I decided how close to crop to the plane, I adjusted the height of the crop box. Press Enter or Return when finished.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5583/14660306457_95da3927b6_h.jpg
Step 7: Setting the image size. You can press Alt + Ctrl + I, or go to Image, Image size. In the pop up box, type the dimensions of the image you want. Again, I always size down to 1600 x 1067.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3857/14844386024_dc9f7a219e_h.jpg
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3853/14823861606_95c6d4c352_h.jpg
Step 8: Searching for dust spots. Go to Image, Adjustments, Equalize on the duplicated layer. This will add a ton of contrast to the image. Dust spots will show up easily in the sky.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5592/14866711383_ad7737ab08_h.jpg
I noticed I have some dust spots, birds, or high flying planes in the upper right side of the image.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5583/14846491212_f8f71bea2a_h.jpg
There are many ways to do the dust spot removal, but this one works for me. I click the eyeball on the duplicated layer. Press the J key and get the spot healing brush.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5564/14660212158_bf15cf7d59_h.jpg
With the duplicated layer still turned off, paint on the original layer over the dust spot. If there are multiple spots, turn on the equalized layer to see the dust spot, turn off the layer and remove them off the original layer. When you are done removing dust spots, delete the duplicated layer. Press Control + J again to add another duplicated layer for the next step.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3883/14823855266_21918c6849_h.jpg
Step 9: Adjust the exposure one last time. After you've duplicated the layer again, press the levels button above the layer pallet.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3861/14660136460_d8106544d5_h.jpg
Notice that the curve stops just short of the end of the histogram. By sliding the right arrow to the end of the curve, it will add just the tiny bit of exposure that is needed. The left side is all the way to the end of the histogram, so there is no need to bump the contrast.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3874/14866702353_f0b0229a77_h.jpg
Step 10: Removing haze with a curves layer. Click on the curves button. Do not adjust the channels of the curve.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3872/14660192829_15b803bac7_h.jpg
Change the blending mode from Normal to Soft Light.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3920/14823845416_0f91102488_h.jpg
Change the opacity until the photo is clear. Use your best judgement here. I went up to 26%. Click the eyeball on the curves layer off and on to see the change it makes. It clears that atmosphere haze out of the image.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3892/14866690243_51a3d44836_h.jpg
Step 11: Sharpening. Next, you are going to want to take all of the changes you made and put them onto one layer. To do this, press Control + Alt + Shift +E on PC and Command +Shift+Alt+E on a Mac. This takes every layer and makes it into one.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5563/14846805105_98af104ed2_h.jpg
Go to Filter / Other / High Pass: ALWAYS DO SHARPENING AT 100%. CHANGE THE IMAGE SIZE AT THE VERY BOTTOM. Anything less than 100%, and you'll think everything is over sharpened.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3857/14660117710_6c17835f61_h.jpg
Set the radius to 0.3 pixels.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3855/14846463262_2306dde062_h.jpg
Change the blending mode to Linear Light. You may think that it is too much sharpening. Depending on your monitor and camera gear, it may be. If that is the case, simply slide the opacity down to about 50%, and then start the next step.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3918/14846460592_0cb758c68f_h.jpg
Next, it is time to brush away all of the areas that may be over sharpened. Add a layer mask. Click the bottom button to add this mask. It will put a white box next to the sharpening layer. Press the B key to bring up your brush tool. You can change the size of your paint brush by pressing the [ and ] keys. On the left side, you'll notice a black and white box Make sure black is on top of the white. This will allow you to paint on a white layer mask and get rid of the effect where you paint. The original texture will shine through. If you want to see where you are painting, press the \ key. The default color is red, so you'll see red lines where you painted.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5561/14846793935_68c5be38d4_h.jpg
I have finished painting where I noticed some jagged lines.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3886/14846789595_b95ecc4703_h.jpg
Step 12: Final noise reduction. Sharpening will add more noise. Although I already removed noise from the exposure settings, the adjustments I made made their own noise. I highly recommend getting Topaz Studios DeNoise. You can use Noise Ninja if you desire. The noise removal in the main PS work space isn't very good. I am using Topaz. Once again, make all of the layers into one layer by doing the Control+Alt+Shift+E or Command+Alt+Shift+E. Bring up Topaz DeNoise.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3860/14846786335_15376ee5a4_h.jpg
I like to click on JPEG Light. The preset slider will adjust your image based on the exposure.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3874/14844340284_ffc2f0b271_h.jpg
I dropped the strength to 4. Each time you make a change, the program will apply it. Press the spacebar to tab between the original and the adjusted result. The image will default to 200% zoom. I adjust the strength until there is barely any noise visible at 200%, because at 100%, you won't see it.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3886/14660159029_003bb2d96a_h.jpg
Step 13: Flatten the image and then save as a JPEG. That is it, you're finished! After you flatten the image, you can then save it as a JPEG with maximum quality.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5572/14846446922_5e53a309f1_h.jpg
The programs I am using are: Adobe Camera RAW 8.1, Photoshop CS6, and Topaz Labs DeNoise V5.
The first step I take is to open the image up in Adobe's Camera RAW. This is where I make my initial adjustments as well as batch edit if the lighting was the same in each shot. To get into Camera RAW, you can do it one of two ways. The first is if you shot your photo in RAW, simply click the image in your folder. Photoshop will automatically open it up in Camera RAW. The second is through Adobe Bridge or Mini Bridge. Right click the thumbnail and click "Open in Camera RAW."
Step 1: Here is the image, right off of the camera. Overall, it came out pretty good. I always use single point focus and try to expose for the brightest part of the fuselage. It needs massive leveling, but otherwise, the histogram shows a pretty decently exposed photo. If you have never used Camera RAW before, below the image is a small description of the sliders, and what they do.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5579/14823875866_ca645e54a4_h.jpg
White Balance: This is where you can make your image look cooler by adding more blues or warmer by adding yellows. Most cameras do a great job of accurate white balance by default. I never touch this for aviation shooting.
Exposure: This will slide the histogram to the right. Make sure you have the two triangles on either side of the histogram checked. This will show you red and blue clipping. Red is for overexposed, and blue for underexposed. Right out of the camera, you'll notice that I have some overexposed pixels on the leading edge of the wing.
Contrast: The image is a tad flat. Meaning, the blacks aren't as black as they could be. Adding more contrast will make the blacks blacker and the highlights brighter. You want to be careful how much contrast you add.
Highlights: If you have red clipping on your image, pull the highlight slider to the left. It will try to recover the lost textures if there is information in the file. This will cause a flattening effect of colors.
Whites: This will allow you to set your white point. I rarely touch this slider in my aviation photography. I do use it a lot in other types of photography.
Shadows: If you notice your shadow areas are lost, slide this to the right. Photoshop will do a great job of filling in the shadows. This was 'fill light' in older versions of PS; however, it has gotten far better at only affecting the shadow areas.
Blacks: If you want to give your blacks (tires, engine cowlings...) more contrast, slide this to the left. If you have the blue clipping on, slide it left until you barely see blue clipping appearing.
Clarity: This adds micro contrast. If you slide this too far to the right, it will give it a semi-HDR effect. Use it very carefully for aviation shots. It will bring out small details like fuselage dimples and dirt on a white fuselage.
Vibrance and Saturation: I will tend to give my images just a touch of vibrance depending on what lens I used. I never add saturation.
Step 2: Here is my image after I made some initial adjustments. I bumped the contrast to 30, pulled my highlights down to -54 to recover the nose, slid my blacks just until the main gear had a tiny bit of clipping, and bumped up the shadows on the fuselage and vibrance.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3854/14843772261_d331180273_h.jpg
Step 3: Time to level! Click on the top of the bar for the ruler tool. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE CAPS LOCK ON. This will allow you to fine tune where the ruler starts. Draw your line along something you know to be horizontal and level. I chose a railing on top of the terminal building.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3836/14846840925_98a91584b0_h.jpg
Put your curser on the corner of the box. You'll get a curved arrow. This will allow you to finely tune your leveling. Here, I am making sure that both my vertical lines are horizontal lines are level.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3844/14866722023_137dff9b42_h.jpg
Press 'Enter' or 'Return' when you're done and your image will automatically level itself to your specifications and it'll crop away the excess that was lost - if any.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3910/14660152890_30108a05e7_h.jpg
Step 4: The last step in Camera RAW is noise removal. Click the triangle icon to bring up the noise sliders. Zoom in to 100%. Noise amount is based on your ISO number and your camera type. Full frame cameras will have a lot less noise than a crop body. I shot this at ISO 250. I typically start at sliding the luminance to 20 - 25 and see what that gives me. I will do one final noise removal in the last step, so I don't want to go crazy here. I only mess with the luminance slider here. Click the Preview box to see what the effect is doing. Click Open Object when ready.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3925/14823867916_fccb016802_h.jpg
Step 5: The main Photoshop workspace will open your image. The first thing to do is to duplicate your layer. Press Control + J to do this. If you screw up, you can just delete the layer copy, and not the original image.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3860/14844389874_a4c130bad9_h.jpg
Step 6: Crop your image. Press the C key, or click on the side to bring up the crop tool. I always crop my aviation shots at 1600x1067 if I am uploading to a database or my Flickr page. I set the crop to Custom and set the pixels I want. Make sure the View is set to 'Grid.' You can now crop your image. Use the grid to center your photo in the frame. For this shot, I will place the center horizontal line on the nose of the plane.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5556/14846834135_ff6e853e09_h.jpg
After I decided how close to crop to the plane, I adjusted the height of the crop box. Press Enter or Return when finished.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5583/14660306457_95da3927b6_h.jpg
Step 7: Setting the image size. You can press Alt + Ctrl + I, or go to Image, Image size. In the pop up box, type the dimensions of the image you want. Again, I always size down to 1600 x 1067.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3857/14844386024_dc9f7a219e_h.jpg
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3853/14823861606_95c6d4c352_h.jpg
Step 8: Searching for dust spots. Go to Image, Adjustments, Equalize on the duplicated layer. This will add a ton of contrast to the image. Dust spots will show up easily in the sky.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5592/14866711383_ad7737ab08_h.jpg
I noticed I have some dust spots, birds, or high flying planes in the upper right side of the image.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5583/14846491212_f8f71bea2a_h.jpg
There are many ways to do the dust spot removal, but this one works for me. I click the eyeball on the duplicated layer. Press the J key and get the spot healing brush.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5564/14660212158_bf15cf7d59_h.jpg
With the duplicated layer still turned off, paint on the original layer over the dust spot. If there are multiple spots, turn on the equalized layer to see the dust spot, turn off the layer and remove them off the original layer. When you are done removing dust spots, delete the duplicated layer. Press Control + J again to add another duplicated layer for the next step.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3883/14823855266_21918c6849_h.jpg
Step 9: Adjust the exposure one last time. After you've duplicated the layer again, press the levels button above the layer pallet.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3861/14660136460_d8106544d5_h.jpg
Notice that the curve stops just short of the end of the histogram. By sliding the right arrow to the end of the curve, it will add just the tiny bit of exposure that is needed. The left side is all the way to the end of the histogram, so there is no need to bump the contrast.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3874/14866702353_f0b0229a77_h.jpg
Step 10: Removing haze with a curves layer. Click on the curves button. Do not adjust the channels of the curve.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3872/14660192829_15b803bac7_h.jpg
Change the blending mode from Normal to Soft Light.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3920/14823845416_0f91102488_h.jpg
Change the opacity until the photo is clear. Use your best judgement here. I went up to 26%. Click the eyeball on the curves layer off and on to see the change it makes. It clears that atmosphere haze out of the image.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3892/14866690243_51a3d44836_h.jpg
Step 11: Sharpening. Next, you are going to want to take all of the changes you made and put them onto one layer. To do this, press Control + Alt + Shift +E on PC and Command +Shift+Alt+E on a Mac. This takes every layer and makes it into one.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5563/14846805105_98af104ed2_h.jpg
Go to Filter / Other / High Pass: ALWAYS DO SHARPENING AT 100%. CHANGE THE IMAGE SIZE AT THE VERY BOTTOM. Anything less than 100%, and you'll think everything is over sharpened.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3857/14660117710_6c17835f61_h.jpg
Set the radius to 0.3 pixels.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3855/14846463262_2306dde062_h.jpg
Change the blending mode to Linear Light. You may think that it is too much sharpening. Depending on your monitor and camera gear, it may be. If that is the case, simply slide the opacity down to about 50%, and then start the next step.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3918/14846460592_0cb758c68f_h.jpg
Next, it is time to brush away all of the areas that may be over sharpened. Add a layer mask. Click the bottom button to add this mask. It will put a white box next to the sharpening layer. Press the B key to bring up your brush tool. You can change the size of your paint brush by pressing the [ and ] keys. On the left side, you'll notice a black and white box Make sure black is on top of the white. This will allow you to paint on a white layer mask and get rid of the effect where you paint. The original texture will shine through. If you want to see where you are painting, press the \ key. The default color is red, so you'll see red lines where you painted.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5561/14846793935_68c5be38d4_h.jpg
I have finished painting where I noticed some jagged lines.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3886/14846789595_b95ecc4703_h.jpg
Step 12: Final noise reduction. Sharpening will add more noise. Although I already removed noise from the exposure settings, the adjustments I made made their own noise. I highly recommend getting Topaz Studios DeNoise. You can use Noise Ninja if you desire. The noise removal in the main PS work space isn't very good. I am using Topaz. Once again, make all of the layers into one layer by doing the Control+Alt+Shift+E or Command+Alt+Shift+E. Bring up Topaz DeNoise.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3860/14846786335_15376ee5a4_h.jpg
I like to click on JPEG Light. The preset slider will adjust your image based on the exposure.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3874/14844340284_ffc2f0b271_h.jpg
I dropped the strength to 4. Each time you make a change, the program will apply it. Press the spacebar to tab between the original and the adjusted result. The image will default to 200% zoom. I adjust the strength until there is barely any noise visible at 200%, because at 100%, you won't see it.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3886/14660159029_003bb2d96a_h.jpg
Step 13: Flatten the image and then save as a JPEG. That is it, you're finished! After you flatten the image, you can then save it as a JPEG with maximum quality.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5572/14846446922_5e53a309f1_h.jpg