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Bright and Brilliant images with Levels

In this first post regarding the Levels and Curve Tools I’d like to emphasize the versatility of these tools. The use of these tools in a raw processing workflow cannot be overstated. In this post I will focus on the basic Levels functions.

Let’s look at this medium contrast image.

The weather was cloudy when I saw this rose on the beach. Low contrast light conditions are fine for close-ups. The water is reflecting the sky and there is some backlight, but that does not make it shine as I intended.

Before using Levels

In my trainings I refer to the Levels Tool as a histogram tool. It takes a histogram as input. Because of this I first apply necessary adjustments that will affect the Levels histogram. For example, I first crop the image; adjust the Exposure, High Dynamic Range (HDR), and Clarity Tool. In the screenshot below, I show you the tools Base Characteristics with film curve, Clarity and Vignetting and their settings.

Black and White Point

Medium and low contrast images do not use all the brightness values, or the full dynamic range of the camera. As a result they look a bit dull because the tonal scale is reduced. There is no real dark or bright area.

The histogram before adjustments with the Levels Tool

The histogram after adjustments with the Levels Tool.

The histogram for the image fits easily within the 0-255 range of the Levels Tool. Too easily, actually, and it reflects the lack of both real highlights and deep shadows.

Auto Adjust or manual?

The Levels Tool Auto Adjust is a great start for adjusting the Black and White Levels but you can also set it manually by dragging the markers or use the eye-dropper. The black level sets which level in the raw file will be the new darkest area and the white level for the brightest area on output.

Input vs. Output Levels

To be more precise on what the Levels Tools actually achieves here, let’s clarify the distinction between input levels and output levels. Input levels are found on the bottom of the Levels Tool and represent the values in the raw file. You can see that I did use the range of 11-243 in this image.

Input levels are converted to output levels, which can be found at the top of the Levels Tools.

The input level of 11 is converted to 0 (zero) in the output and input level 243 to 255. Output levels of 0 and 255 represent the maximum black and white respectively. Optionally, you can adjust the output levels as well if it serves your needs, like with printing, to 5 and 250 for example.

The image now has a better tonal scale and therefore more punch.

Darken or Brighten

Setting the black and white levels will change the overall image brightness. This can be corrected with the mid tone marker in the Levels Tool. Modest use has little effect on the endpoints of the histogram. In other words: little risk for clipping or losing data. Positive values open up shadows and reduce the impression of contrast.

A ‘full’ histogram from end to end

Technically the biggest advantage of setting the black and white point plus the mid gray with the Levels Tool in Capture One Pro 7 is that it creates a ‘full’ histogram from end to end on output. This will smoothen gradations without banding (in contrast to setting levels in a processed image).

Also, using Levels precedes the use of the Curve Tool, which I will discuss in my second blog.

High contrast images and Levels

In general, you do not need to set black and white points on high contrast images, which tend to clip at one or either side of the histogram. However, you can still benefit from the Levels mid tone adjustment to make modest brightness adjustments without the risk of clipping. I prefer this to the use of the Brightness slider in the Exposure Tool. Or, as we will discuss in another post, you can also use the Curve Tool for that purpose.

Watch in-depth tutorial on how to use the Levels Tool.

Best regards,

Paul

My Raw Processing Software of Choice

I’ve always been a big supporter of using your free time to shoot personal work to keep your portfolio and your skills fresh. In fact, it’s my personal work that fills most of my portfolios.

Back to West Virginia

Recently I took my Phase One 645DF+ with the IQ140 back to the West Virginia
farming countryside to take portraits of a lovely model, Cari Funkhouser. The camera
performed fantastically to capture the model and the sky detail in one shot thanks to the
dynamic range on the IQ backs.

Capture One Pro 7 is my raw processing software of choice. I use it to easily color
balance, bring out detail from the highlights and shadows, correct lens flaws, and
sharpen my images with great ease and efficiency.

Most of the shoot was accomplished with only 1 light. There was a great moody sky and the Phase One’s 12.5 stops dynamic range captured all of that beautiful detail. Below is the image before and after post production in Capture One Pro 7.

Much like you’d see on the camera’s screen, Capture One Pro 7 has focus masking (in green) and highlight over-exposure warning (in red). I use these features to quickly identify which images will be sharp up close and not too over-exposed and worth editing.

On a normal setup, I may take 25-75 images. From those, I can easily choose the 5-10 images within acceptable focus and exposure range using the focus and exposure masks in the thumbnails as you can see in the screen shot above. From those 5-10 images, I would process the raw files and edit with greater detail. Doing this saves a lot of time opening up each huge raw file just to check to make sure it’s in focus.

I quickly double-checked my focus and added a little sharpness. I normally add about 30 sharpness to the “Amount” to most of my images. I find that this helps add a slight fine edge that I like to see in my photography. Of course, if I really like an image, but the focus is a little soft, I can add more sharpness. As you can see on the left in the screen shot of our image below, it looks super detailed!

Next I start making global exposure and color adjustments.

The colors in the image straight out of camera were really great due to the custom-made ICC profiles in the software.

But I wanted to just make the colors of the sky and grass stand out a little bit more, so I increased the saturation and the contrast to 4 just to mark the difference between the foreground and background (see screen shot below).

As far as I can see, the image processing engine makes recovering details from the highlights and the shadows very easy without losing information. I’ve never seen another program perform so effectively in doing so. I’ve had shots that were captured accidentally 1 stop over or under and you wouldn’t know by seeing the final images.

Making adjustment layers and masks is very easy. As you can see below, I created different
layers to bring out detail and color out of the clouds and grass independently.

In the shown layer (see screen shot below) I used a mask to increase Clarity and Exposure in order to highlight the clouds in the image.

It took me a couple of weeks to find the right workflow that suits me best, but after getting comfortable with how Capture One Pro 7 works with all of its customizable functions, I’m able to bring more out of my RAW files.

Worth the learning curve

It also took me a bit to really learn and trust what the software could do in regards to recovery of highlights and shadows and sharpness, but it really is fantastic and worth the learning curve. Everything you saw me do above in the blog post can be accomplished in about 5 minutes, depending how in-depth I go in the edit, from open to exporting of the final file.

Best regards,

Douglas

Dramatic Still Life with Capture One Pro 7

As a new Phase One 645DF+ and IQ280 user, I’m continually marveled by the amount of detail I can achieve in my food and still life images.

With 13 f-stops of dynamic range, everything is there, and sometimes I need to gently coax the viewer into areas that I want them to see, as well as parts I don’t want to draw attention to.

Rich detail even in the shadows

Nowhere do I see this more than with dark dramatic shots that maintain full, rich detail even inside the shadows. For this personal project of dark, moody still life images, I utilized some pretty powerful and basic features of Capture One Pro 7 to edit and process this series. Let’s take a look, shall we?

This shot of tea and snacks (with a few camellias from my garden tossed in for good measure) was shot overhead with just one light source (a big giant window with diffusion material over it).

My exposure is exactly where I wanted it to be, and I like the shape and direction of the light. However, I’m seeing some things I want to see and missing a few other things I’d like to minimize. Image photographed at ISO 100, 1 second, f/8, 80mm.

Food photography is all about details

My first plan of action is to get the shot where I’d like it in terms of density, shadow, and color. These are all super quick and easy in Capture One Pro 7, and I’m able to see things in subtle ways making minute adjustments. With food photography it’s all about details, and I rarely need to make massive, over-the-top adjustments to a file.

First, I wanted to bring out some color in the distressed zinc farm table. I selected the color in the Color Editor and boosted saturation (see screen grab above). Next I increased my contrast just a bit by 6 while decreasing my overall saturation by -25 (screengrab below).

That might seem counterintuitive considering I just boosted my blues a step earlier, but I prefer to get individual locations of color in the right hue before affecting the overall shot. Also, in the High Dynamic Range I increased shadows by 6 just a tiny bit so that I could see some detail of the table in the shadows. Not much, just a bit.

With color and exposure exactly where I want it, my last stop before processing involved opening up certain parts of the image. Since this was a tea story, I wanted to be able to show the various loose teas in the stoneware bowls, and this is where Local Adjustments come in handy!

I created a new layer called “Tea Layer” (screen grab above) so that I could select just the tops of the bowls and lighten just a bit.

Moving the exposure slider all the way allows me to see exactly what will be affected. In this case it’s way too much but still nice to see before dialing it back down (screen grab below).

The tea is now visible, and it’s subtle and in line with the rest of the image (screen grab below). I should also note that while there is tea in the other vessels but I don’t feel it necessary to do the same process to those. And overhead shot of liquid in a dark cup won’t reveal much detail anyway, no amount of editing can change that.

My second shot involved more camellias from my tree, their date-of-expiration and browned leaves paired well with the texture of the table and dark ceramic plate. Image photographed at ISO 100, 1/8s, f/2.8 with a 80mm lens.

It looked good to me, but was missing a bit of drama and punch. Like my previous shot above, I saturated the blue in the table for added depth in color.

Next I went to my exposure panel and bumped up contrast by 7, removing overall saturation by -20, and adding a bit in High Dynamic Range (shadow, 6). I followed that up by adding a tiny amount of vignetting (screen grab below).

Now that I’m done, I simply process out in a good size so that I can print for promotional materials and my portfolio. Easy!

Best regards,

Matt

Get perfect snow without Color Cast

NOTE: This article discusses an outdated version of Capture One. To learn more about our latest version, click here.

When shooting snow landscape images you are extremely sensitive to the White Balance (WB) in your images and to any tone variation in the ‘color’ of the snow.

The snow in the image is like having placed White Balance cards all over your image and if you have any systematical variation of the WB, it will be very obvious to see.

Systematical variations will come out

Even though you don’t normally notice that your camera shows systematical variations in the WB across the image, it may become obvious in snow landscape images and you will want to do something about it.

If you are having WB variation issues, the LCC Tool in Capture One Pro 7 will be the perfect tool for fixing the problem.

Something not right about the “color” of the snow

Coming home from a beautiful day in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains shooting with a camera that I haven’t been using for snow landscape images before, I couldn’t wait to see the results in Capture One Pro 7.

I noticed that there was something not right with the ‘color’ of the snow. No matter where I used the White Balance Picker to set the WB on the images, they would show a greenish/cyan cast toward the edges. My camera and lens were showing a classical Color Cast issue. This was not something I had noticed before, but now with snow landscape images it was quite obvious.

Above is the image in Capture One Pro 7 after import. I have added the color readout pins to show the difference in WB between the center of the image and the edge. At the edge the WB is off with a difference of 14 between the red and the blue color channels.

Enter the LCC Tool…..

Fortunately Capture One Pro 7 has a LCC Tool (Lens Cast Correction Tool), which has been specially designed to deal with this kind of problem.

Originally it was designed to deal with Medium Format Camera backs mounted on technical cameras where the angle of incident light through the lens to the sensor often can be very extreme and very different from when the sensor was calibrated at the factory for working with standard lenses. The LCC Tool is located in the Lens Tool Tab.

Color Cast in the image Color Cast removed by the LCC Tool

Here you can see the effect of fixing the Color Cast issue. It would really be a shame if such an image ended up on a white wall or framed with a passe-partout without having fixed the Color Cast issue. Once you notice it you see it all the time.

You need a reference file

To fix an issue with Color Cast in your camera you basically need to shoot a reference file of a white opaque plate with the camera and the lens you were using. From this reference file Capture One Pro 7 can calculate the needed information to fix various lens/sensor related issues like: Color Cast, Dust Spots and Light fall-off. In this case I only need to use the Color Cast functionality of the tool.

How to shoot the LCC reference file:

When shooting the reference file for fixing Color Cast in your lens/camera system, it is important to use the same lens settings as when you use the lens for your real images. The angles of incident light through the lens to the sensor needs to be exactly the same for the reference shoot as for the real images you want to fix. You should also use the same kind of light.

So if you are using natural daylight, then shoot the reference file in that light and if you are using tungsten, then use tungsten also for your reference shoot. Using the same light source may not be important for your camera/lens combination, but for others it may make a difference.

Focus distance also have an influence but it’s not typically something that matters between focus distances of 5m to infinity, but it makes a difference between close-up and infinity as the light passing through the lens actually changes quite al lot between these focus distances.

When shooting the LCC reference file you place the diffusing opaque plate right in front of the lens.

Various versions of opaque plates available

For this particular camera I am always shooting at f.5.6 and focusing on infinity. Therefore, I only needed to do one reference file using these settings. There are various versions of opaque plates you can use and they can typically be bought through your local photo dealer. In my case I didn’t expect the camera to show this kind of problem, so I didn’t bring my opaque plate with me. But I couldn’t wait to fix the problem until I returned from my trip, so I had to figure something out.

No opaque plate…….what to do?

When shooting the opaque plate you place it directly in front of the lens. This means that it is so close to the lens that it is totally out of focus. The surface of the plate doesn’t need to super perfect; the plate just needs to defuse the light so the camera doesn’t see any motive through the plate.

What could deliver such functionality? Luckily I had an almost new white plastic bag with me. Maybe this would be good enough. I cut out a piece of the plastic bag large enough to cover the lens. Holding the white plastic up to the light I could see that it looked pretty even and I decided to give it a try. And yes it worked.

Creating an LCC file in Capture One Pro 7

Start by importing the image of the opaque plate. Locate it in the browser and right-click on the thumbnail.

When creating the LCC calibration data you have the option of including dust removal information. If you are working with a wide-angle lens on a technical camera with a digital back, you should select the “Wide Angle Lens with movements”, as this will enable some extra analysis steps necessary for these kind of lenses but not necessary normal DSLR and mirrorless cameras.

When a LCC file has been created, a LCC icon appears on the top of the thumbnail to indicate, that this file acts as a LCC references file.

The effect of removing the Color Cast:

When you have created the LCC file, it will automatically apply the calibration data to the image itself, so you can validate the effect of the just created LCC calibration file.

To show you the effect of removing Color Cast, I have made two variants of the same opaque reference image. On both variants I have picked the White Balance in the center of the image. Then a good deal of extra saturation from the Exposure Tool has been added to make it easier to see the Color Cast.

The image to the left shows the nature of the Color Cast: a green/cyan toning increasing towards the corners of the image. The image on the right side has the Color Cast applied and it shows no color at all.

Fixing the Color Cast by applying the LCC file to the real images

As this is something you probably want to do with a large number of images, you should start by setting up the “Apply LCC Options”. Click on the “triangle” icon in the LCC toolbar to get the menu list.

I am not interested in compensating for the light fall-off of the lens so I set the amount to 0%.

Now I want to apply the LCC to all my images. In the thumbnail browser I select all the images that I want to fix including the LCC Image. I right-click on any of the selected thumbnails and select the “Apply LCC” option. This applies the Color Cast fix to all the selected files.

For this method to work it is necessary that the LCC file is either the first or the last of the selection of files.

Making a LCC calibration Preset:

Now that I have realized that my camera actually needs a LCC file for critical White Balance images, I will generate a LCC Preset that is simple to use at any other time without having to find the image of the white opaque plate. In the LCC Tool I set the Uniform Light slider to 0%. Then I select the Icon with the 3 horizontal lines found in the toolbar of the LCC Tool. Here I choose the “Save User Preset” option.

In the preset menu you can save or find already generated User Presets. In this case I named the Preset after the camera model and the f-stop. By having the Preset it will be extremely easy to fix an image shoot with this camera for color cast in the future.

All the best,

Niels