Insects, and maybe a discussion about post-processing

Images taken in a controlled environment or with a posed subject. All subject types.

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MarkSturtevant
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Insects, and maybe a discussion about post-processing

Post by MarkSturtevant »

I don't know where to put this, as some are 'studio' and some are not, and the main body is an opener to discuss how people post -process images like these. Sorry if I am causing trouble! Please move if needed.

The first are studio pictures. I was trying to get in some staged shots of a common green lacewing (probably Chrysopa oculata), because I was bored and it showed up, but the darn thing kept flying to a window. So I just photographed it there, and it turned out to be rather interesting. The pictures are stacks from a small # of handheld pictures.
Imagegreen lacewing by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr
Imagegreen lacewing by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

Next are a pair of rice-grain sized Promethea moth caterpillars (Callosamia promethea). These will probably die horribly (as most do), but if they survive they will become impressively large caterpillars and later turn into a large moth that is similar to our cecropia moth.
ImagePromethea moth caterpillars by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

And here is a very handsome Virginia ctenucha moth (Ctenucha virginica). I tend to see these along the margins of woods, and for some time have been trying to properly capture their iridescent blue colors.
ImageVirginia ctenucha moth by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

These pictures exemplify a recent work flow that I've been playing with, and I was also wondering what other people do to their pictures before posting. I work mostly in Gimp, and my past routine for some time has been as follows:
> Crop, mainly to have the subject fill out more of the space.
> Apply some adjustments with the curves tool to try to bring out details in brighter and darker areas.
> De-noise. My main camera is a Canon t5i. This is an older consumer grade body, and it will give 'ya plenty noise to worry about. Gimp has no dedicated de-noise tool that I am aware of, but there is a plug-in called G'Mic with hundreds of extra tools, including several de-noise tools. I will on occasion also apply a blurring brush to take down noise in selected areas.
> Un-sharp mask (this being more selective than just sharpening). I read somewhere that sharpening adds noise (or enhances what noise is there), so its best to de-noise first before sharpening. I am not sure if that is true.
> Maybe do a little "chroma" enhancement, where colors are perked up just a tiny smidge.
> Plenty times I will use cloning and healing brushes to help perfect things. Removing dirt, for example. The window in the green lacewing pictures needed a lot of perfecting!

Now to this workflow I've been recently playing with layers and layer masks. For some reason I could never get my head around those things, but a few months ago it suddenly clicked. So now I've been doing the above adjustments in different combinations to duplicated copies of a picture, arranged in layers, and then these are merged together with layer masks. Using layer masks allows one to optimize and localize adjustments to specific parts of a picture. For example, I can apply de-noise effects but not sharpening effects to a layer that is to become just the background, while another layer that is to become just the foreground subject gets sharpening but not de-noise (as noise actually contains some detail). The Promethea caterpillar presented an interesting challenge since the black stripes were too black, and the white stripes were too white. Both needed some help to bring out details. So two layers were made, and one was adjusted to lighten the black stripes, and the other adjusted slightly to darken the white stripes. Then these were merged together with a layer mask.

I could go on, but I hope that conveys the basic idea of my current post-processing work flow. I was wondering what other people do. Feel free to share!
Mark Sturtevant
Dept. of Still Waters

Guppy
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Re: Insects, and maybe a discussion about post-processing

Post by Guppy »

Hi Mark

I like the pictures very much.

I take pictures in the studio and pay attention to the best quality when shooting.
Camera Nikon D810, full format with high resolution, save in RAW format with maximum color depth of 14 bits.
Stack step size is one third of depth of field.
Illumination is with short flash by 3-5 flash units and by a diffuser.
The basic sensitivity of the camera is used and exposed according to ETTR.
During the development of the RAW images, noise is removed, the brightest areas are taken back and no sharpening is applied.
The individual images of the series are saved in 16 bit TIF format.
Everything that can be done is optimized during the capture.
The stacked image is retouched (dirt removed), the middle structures are slightly increased.
Adjustment of colors and tonal values.

Kurt

Pizzazz
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Re: Insects, and maybe a discussion about post-processing

Post by Pizzazz »

Mark

You and Kurt have excellent images and work flows and I could learn a few trick from this.
I use Photoshop and really want to learn The GIMP mainly because Adobe wants you to "subscribe" (AKA - send them more money), but that is a rant for Lewis Black to address.
I digress...

Anyway, after editing via Zerene:
I duplicate my master layer so I retain the original.
I add a levels adjustment layer to address the range of blacks to white
I start retouching, removing artifacts that affect the image such as noticeable dust, etc
I play with cropping
I add an unsharp adjustment layer
Once I am finished, I save the Photoshop file
I then "save for the WEB" so Rik does not yell at me for having an image that is too large :)

I probably need to do more but I want to keep the mage looking as "unmodified" as possible.


Mike

Adalbert
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Re: Insects, and maybe a discussion about post-processing

Post by Adalbert »

Hi Mark,

My workflow depends on the camera and the lens.
E.g. ETTR doesn't work with M6M2 but it does with 6D.
The 6D doesn't noise at all, but the M6M2 does.

I de-noise more for the high magnifications than for the small ones.
Depending on the output size, I also sharpen more for the web than for the high resolutions.
The cutting/cropping depends on whether the background is to be replaced or not.
For very deep stacks, substacks are used to simplify Zerene's retouching.

But what works the same for all of them is the following:

- Shooting in RAW
- Development of the RAW files ( e.g. LR: denoise, reduce lights, reduce sharpness, remove CA, etc. )
- Conversion from RAW to TIFF ( e.g. LR)
- Stacking of the TIFF files ( e.g. Zerene )
- Retouching with the stacking software (e.g. Zerene)
- Denoising (e.g. Topaz DeNoise)
- Retouching with image processing software (e.g. GIMP, PS)
- Sharpening (e.g. Topaz Detail)
- Scaling down (e.g. WebSharpener)
- Sharpening (e.g. Topaz Clean)
- Saving for the web ( e.g. PS )

Best,
ADi

Lou Jost
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Re: Insects, and maybe a discussion about post-processing

Post by Lou Jost »

My process is similar, but there is one thing I'd like to add regarding sharpening that seems "under-explained" (ie hidden) in Adobe Camera Raw. It is something I wish I had known a long time ago.

On the Sharpening page of ACR, there is a slider called "Detail" whose default position is about 25%. I never really understood what this did. Then somewhere on the web I read that this slider is actually controlling the balance between a deconvolution algorithm (lowest value of the slider) and an edge-sharpening algorithm, perhaps like Unsharp Mask (higher values of the slider). I really hate an over-processed, over-sharpened image, and at the default Details setting, pushing the Amount slider to higher values often led to that oversharpened look. But I found that if you move the Detail slider all the way to the left, the image sharpening ceases to make haloes and artifacts, even for quite high levels of Amount. With the Details slider all the way to the left, I now move the Amount slider to a point where it looks good, then adjust the Radius slider for best effect, and then gently nudge the Details slider VERY slightly to the right until the image is perfect. This workflow has greatly improved my sharpening results while avoiding the usual artifacts.

MarkSturtevant
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Re: Insects, and maybe a discussion about post-processing

Post by MarkSturtevant »

All interesting!

There are various 'deficiencies' that I know I have, the first in the series is a continued tendency to have blown out highlights on shiny stuff. Some of that is from the #$$#& sun (not my fault?) but the rest come from the external flash, or flashes, since I use a twin flash. I've been working on the diffuser over this winter, where I am going to try a weird method to really bounce the light around inside the diffuser before it comes out. We will see if it works when I bring it out the camera this season.

Another deficiency of mine is that although I habitually shoot in Raw, I don't usually take advantage of the greater depth available in processing from Raw. So I immediately convert to Jpeg or Tiff format (they come out as big files), then then do most of my work in Gimp. That is out of familiarity with it.

The best Raw editor I have is Raw Therapee, which is free, and that thing is pow-er-ful. Only thing is, it is not easy to figure out. So I've watched tons of videos about it, and have a book of notes about how to do this or that. I do need to work more in Raw.
Mark Sturtevant
Dept. of Still Waters

Adalbert
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Re: Insects, and maybe a discussion about post-processing

Post by Adalbert »

Hello Lou,
I use LR in the same way and usually set the value of "Details" smaller than 10.
BTW, Amount ~= 100 and Radius ~=1.5
Best,
ADi

Adalbert
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Re: Insects, and maybe a discussion about post-processing

Post by Adalbert »

Hi Mark,
I don't usually take advantage of the greater depth available in processing from Raw.
So I immediately convert to Jpeg or Tiff format
TIFF is OK (16 Bit)
Best,
ADi

MarkSturtevant
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Re: Insects, and maybe a discussion about post-processing

Post by MarkSturtevant »

Some more specific comments.

> Pizzazz: Is the unsharp adjustment layer the same thing as a protocol using a high pass filter of the image? That one is described here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AvIAgjQCFo in Gimp, but any program with layers would likely provide some form of it. This is where one makes a grey-scale image copy that has high contrast differences along edges, and this is used to apply sharpening effects along those edges. That was a thing I was trying a couple years ago, but it had wandered out of my workflow for no good reason. I am more than ready to put it back in, especially since working with layers is now routine for me.

Also, with Gimp, one deficiency of it is that in my version (not the latest version), it does not have a good set of tools for noise reduction that I'm aware of. This is surprising since its an excellent image editor in other ways. The G'Mic plug-in takes care of that lack of noise reduction, but that plug-in is no longer available in the latest version of Gimp for Mac. So I use an older version (2.10). I think G'Mic is still available for the latest Gimp versions for PC and Linux.

> Lou: The Details tool is good. I've seen it, but have not played with it much. Its in Gimp, and also RawTherapee has tons of sliders for it (it is typical that RT has a bewildering set of sliders for everything).

These image editors should just have a big button that says "Enhance!!". You know, like in the crime dramas on T.V.
Mark Sturtevant
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Lou Jost
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Re: Insects, and maybe a discussion about post-processing

Post by Lou Jost »

Matrk, I don't know that those other programs use the same algorithms, or give the same name to them. Are you sure they are the same? In any case, it is the best way to eliminate sharpening artifacts.

MarkSturtevant
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Re: Insects, and maybe a discussion about post-processing

Post by MarkSturtevant »

I don't know if they are the same algorithm.
Mark Sturtevant
Dept. of Still Waters

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