In this article, I want to share both the technical details of how this piece came together, as well as my internal conversation over the nature of abstract art and how it relates to photography.

The Wide Shot

Most of my recent photography-based mixed-media pieces - such as Seeking to Understand and Avian Aspirations - use close-ups of the cracks, veining, and strata in rock as the structural pattern for my shapes. Combined with cropping that hides the edges, perspective is removed, helping to abstract the shot. However, every now and then I back up, widen out the lens, and shoot a mountainside for my patterns. I still crop out the ground and the sky, but the scale is much different, and the underlying image is often more recognizable as being a mountain rather than just colors and shapes.

In the spring of 2009, we visited Arches National Park in Utah. In addition to its namesake arches, there is also a wonderful section known as Park Avenue which contains a number of huge, monolithic slabs of rock arranged at varying angles:

As you can see, it was an overcast day, which resulted in a featureless sky and lack of strong shadow patterns. This would normally be a bummer for nature photography, but actually helped in creating evenly lit surfaces for me to work with.

A large section of one of these rock faces served as the underlying photo for this piece. Here is the untouched Camera Raw file; the gnarled tree in the lower right helps give a sense of scale:

A problem with the flat lighting was a corresponding lack of vivid color. I increased the contrast and saturation to give myself more variety in the values and hues:

As this was shot with an older Canon 10D DSLR with a maximum of 3072 pixels, I restricted myself to a print size of 12"x18” so I could get at least 150 dpi resolution for the print (I prefer at least 200 dpi for sharpness; 100 dpi tends to be too soft). I printed a pale version on heavy art stock as my “paint by numbers” guide, and then turned to deciding what papers to tear to match the patterns in the rock.

Shooting the Message

I often like to include text as part of my collage “underpainting” to help hook in the viewer. Sometimes I use foreign languages and alphabets to evoke a sense of mystery; sometimes I use explicit texts in English to set the mood for the rest of the piece (such as was the case for Avian Aspirations).

For these texts, I rely on old dictionaries, encyclopedias, and textbooks, both to ensure the sources are in the public domain, and also to present a different take on what may now be commonly accepted knowledge. Sometimes I borrow from fringe practices, such as phrenology which opined you could determine a person’s behavior by the details in the shape of their skull.

As part of this study, I came across the writings of the influential phrenologist George Combe, who assembled a number of his earlier submissions to The Phrenological Journal and Magazine of Moral Science into a small tome titled Phrenology Applied to Painting and Sculpture, released in 1855. It includes a passage titled “Object of the Artist.” In it, Combe - a self-admitted novice in art, who was appalled by the reliance on opinions and impressions over reasons and principles in the field of art criticism - states:

The object of these arts is to represent, by means of form and color, the most interesting and beautiful productions of Nature, invested with their highest attributes. Until the things themselves be scientifically understood, the science of representing them will remain imperfect.

Although there are certainly excellent representative-style artists who hone their craft by studying the makeup of their subjects in intimate detail, such a statement denies entire fields of impressionistic, expressionistic, abstract, and other non-representative art. Indeed, the equation of art to the “science of representation” is enough to cause many to bristle.

The irony, of course, is that photographers - by the very nature of their craft - are usually involved in representative art. Then how dare I call myself an abstract artist, when the source of most of my recent work has been photographs?

This inner conflict was recently resolved when I read Fran Boas’ classic (1927) text Primitive Art where he states up front that “It is essential to bear in mind the twofold sources of artistic effect: the one based on form alone, the other on ideas associated with form.” I indeed focus on the ideas as much as the form. For example, when I take a photo of a bird, I am not as interested in the object “bird” as much as trying to capture a movement, pose, or expression that yields insight into what the bird might be thinking - the essence of the bird in that moment. Many accomplished photographers have he same goal: to get at the essence of the scene or being they are photographing; not just the surface appearance.

Additionally, one must keep in mind that Combe wrote “Object of the Artist” well before modern or abstract art became major forces, let alone were widely accepted as legitimate forms of artistic expression.

Still, although I felt compelled to use Combe’s words to compel the observant viewer to think, my own issues with their assertion kept this piece in a drawer for nearly two years. I finally made peace by accepting the irony of creating a piece of abstract art with these words at its core, and pushed forward.

next page: creating custom collage papers from scans; assemblage and framing decisions

Rock, Paper, Scissors Fingers

Many of my pieces start as photographs of rock textures taken during hikes (or other more urban excursions). As it takes a bit of time to sort through selects and color correct them to taste, I tend to create a series based on a particular excursion. As was the case with Avian Aspirations, the seed photo for this work came from a rather un-exotic locale: a landscaping rock outside a place we liked to stay at in Palm Desert, California. This was back when a Canon 10D was my primary camera, and pixels were precious, so I tried to compose and frame the shot as close as I could to “final” as I could, taking color, line, and balance into account:

I then worked on the image to bring out its latent colors and boost its contrast. As this photo would eventually be printed over collage papers rather than photographic paper, I over-amped the saturation and contrast in anticipation of a less-than-perfect print:

The next step involved printing a faint version of this image on a 13x19” sheet of heavyweight fine art paper (Hawk Mountain Kestrel; I buy slightly flawed proofing sheets for this type of work to save cost). This piece was printed on an old 13” Epson 2200 Photo printer, rather than my fancier 24” HP Z3100. In many ways, the considerably less sophisticated manual-feed 2200 is a better printer for mixed media work than my big automated-everything Z3100: Unlike the Z3100, the 2200 does not care what color the paper is, whether or not there is a wide enough white band around the edges to auto-detect them, or if the sheet is a bit bumpy. Most important of all, Epson printers generally can take twice the paper thickness as the equivalent HP printer (1.5 mm compared to 0.8 mm).

This faint version of the photo acted as a “paint by numbers” template for creating a torn-paper collage that matches the lines, shapes, and flow of the original image:

In general, I like to vary the color, texture, and reflectivity of the papers in the underlying collage to help “facet” the resulting surface. In addition to using commercially available collage papers (including those with natural and metallic inclusions, a large silkscreen of a fingerprint, and petroglyph symbols used here), I sometimes custom-print my own papers to better relate to the intended subject of the piece.

I like using text and technical illustrations in my work, careful to choose books that are now in the public domain as my sources to scan. For this piece that focused on knowledge systems (either proven or just conjectured), I scanned an example of the “Model Head” from an old book on phrenology as well as an appendix on “Arbitrary Signs in Writing and Printing” - focusing on the astronomical and astrological - from a late-19th-century Webster’s dictionary:

Both were printed on metallic-painted mulberry paper using our laser printer. Metallic paper was chosen to draw attention to the text: It yields a glossier surface and reflects the light much more strongly than the matte papers used throughout the rest of the collage. The toner fusing process allows me to print text on surfaces that would otherwise repel ink, and black toner is lightfast. After printing, I coated these sheets with Golden Digital Ground for Non Porous surfaces to make sure they could later receive an inkjet print on top.

The image along the bottom is photo I took at Red Rocks in Nevada composited with the classic Eadweard Muybridge walk cycle of a man:

Muybridge used sequenced multi-camera photographic rigs to determine how the muscles and bones of both people and animals worked as they performed a variety of movements. These individual photos could then be strung back together as a sequence to replay the original motion - an early predecessor to “bullet time” cinematography as seen in The Matrix among other films. He is sort of a patron saint to motion graphics artists (my day job), and I like to use his now-public-domain images as a recurring theme in my work. Dover Press has published two comprehensive volumes of his work (The Human Figure in Motion and Animals in Motion), which serve as excellent references.

From Collage to Assemblage

The collage papers were glued over the faint print, using a roller and brayer with a lot of pressure to keep flat. The entire result was then coated lightly with Golden Digital Ground to help the papers better take the ink. I then printed the color-corrected photo on top of the collage, careful to align the paper during loading so that the final print matches my original template.

To be honest, the moment the print comes out is usually a let down: I have a mental image of what I think it’s going to look like, and it often looks different as the ink overlays on the various papers in ways I didn’t fully anticipate. (The fact that I don’t have a photo of the work at this point is a clue of how I initially felt!) But when one is painting outside the lines, you have to learn to let go of your preconceived notions and go with the flow. To aid that process, I often set the print aside for a period of time to forget what I thought I was going to get. I then revisit it later to see it for what it actually is, and get inspiration from that.

After sealing the printed surface with a UV-protective varnish, the final step is then adding assemblage materials on top of the print:

The lighter areas along the top right presented a natural void to add the main physical element: In this case, a bundle of sticks acting as a beam to hang other elements from. The pattern in the fingerprint silkscreen paper contained a natural swoop that leads the viewer up to the center of the sticks; that’s where I placed a trio of lava beads. The eye then moves to the right and back down to the hero “wheel” stone (another oblique knowledge reference), and continues down to the Model Head. Although it is hard to tell in this photo, the head is underneath a piece of translucent mica floated off the surface of the print using stone chip beads. Behind the mica, the head is staring at a key dangled tantalizingly in front of it, again for its symbolism.

I tend to like to have my main focal area balanced off with a smaller area roughly in the opposite corner of the work. In this case, in the lower left I bring attention to the now-obscured Muybridge men by floating another piece of mica over one frame, and replacing his head in another with the internals of a watch (representing the mechanical age - another period of learning).

Onward

Although this piece was framed under glass, I’ve sinced moved toward mounting pieces onto boards, and then floating the exposed boards either freely or inside a frame to better let the viewer examine the texture and assemblage elements:

I’m now trying to find ways to coax my HP Z3100 printer to allow me to run collages through it so I can create larger works. This includes experimenting with different base sheets and adhesives. If I make any breakthroughs (or break the printer in the process), I’ll let you know.

Our photographs and artwork, as well as content contained in our books, videos, blogs, and articles for other sites are all copyright Crish Design, except where otherwise attributed. Other examples of my mixed media work may be found on my artist web site.

Against that backdrop, respected photo and inkjet printer paper manufacturer Ilford recently sent me boxes of their Galerie Smooth Gloss and Pearl inkjet photo papers to test (as well as their more specialized Galerie Gold Fibre Silk, which will be the subject of a later review). After spending some time profiling them, staring at gamut graphs, and making a set of test prints, here are my results. Along the way, we’ll discuss a few other papers, as well as issues related to a proper color-managed printing workflow.

The Specs (In Context)

The Ilford Galerie Smooth line of paper is compatible with both dye and pigment based printers. The Gloss and Pearl papers have a weight of 290 gsm (grams/square meter), and a caliper thickness of 11.5 mil (thousands of an inch - in metric, this is about 0.29 mm). This is a touch heavier and thicker than typical photo papers, which typically weigh in around 250 gsm and caliper at 10 mil. They are available in a variety of sheet and roll sizes, as well as on pre-mounted boards (click here for a PDF of available sizes). Both use an “instant dry” coating to cut down on starwheel and roller marks caused by the ejection mechanism in some printers.

The Galerie Smooth Gloss has a typical photo gloss finish - highly reflective at certain angles, with a faint “calendared” texture visible normal to gloss printer papers (don’t expect glass-smooth). Galerie Smooth Pearl is a semi-gloss paper with a light pebble or grain to it that helps diffuse the light, so on the one hand it appears less reflective, but on the other hand it has a slight sparkle. This texture is equivalent to other “luster” photo papers such as the Epson Premium Luster or Breathing Color Elegance Luster I normally use.

The color is a neutral white with a very slight warm tint, between the warmer Breathing Color Elegance and the cooler blue-white Epson Premium Luster. Bright white papers with a blue tint tend to be an indicator that Optical Brightening Agents (OBAs) have been used; less-bright warmer-toned papers tend not to use them - as is the case with the Ilford papers here. Your choice will be guide by aesthetics, business practices, and how much you care about permanence (Breathing Color in particular has written on this subject); I personally have moved to non-OBA papers as my preference for my own work. These Ilford papers also recently received strong permanence scores from Wilhelm Imaging Research: over 200 years for prints protected under glass in normal lighting conditions; 70-78 years for unprotected prints; over 250 years in dark storage including paper yellowing concerns.

Ilford’s papers fall into the midrange of price for high-quality papers. For example, from my pricing around the internet I found the Galerie Smooth Pearl landed right between my reference papers Epson Premium Luster Photo 250 on the high end and Breathing Color Vibrance Luster on the low end; Galerie Smooth Gloss was biased a little higher relative to its competition, but still fell below comparable Epson papers.

Left-Brain Analysis

I received a box of 25 13x19” sheets of each to text. Ilford includes a paper of printing tips in several languages inside the box, which is both helpful and occasionally confusing: To wit, it recommended paper settings for HP printers that are not supported by my HP Z3100, and suggested that ColorSmart/sRGB was one of the recommended working spaces (professionals should be using the wider gamuts offered by Adobe RGB if not ProPhoto RGB color spaces). I know this is supposed to be general getting-up-and-running advice for a wide range of printers, but it was still a little unnerving.

The secret to finding the correct paper settings is to download the ICC color profiles provided on Ilford’s web site (registration required) and go through the included documentation: The profiles themselves are named in a way to suggest what paper settings are best for your specific printer, such as the “less ink” variation of Photo Gloss and Photo Semi-Gloss (options not mentioned in the slip sheet in the box, nor in the PDF you can download from elsewhere on Ilford’s web site). In my case, I used the built-in profiling capabilities of my Z3100 to make sure I had the most accurate profile for my particular printer, but the advice included with Ilford’s profiles was still useful in optimizing my settings.

When you have an ICC color profile for your paper, using a utility that can read that profile and graph it - such as the ColorSync Utility that comes with MacOS - can give you insight into the strengths and weaknesses of a particular paper, especially when compared to the profiles for other papers. For those who are unfamiliar with looking at these profiles, here are a couple of different views on the one my printer created for Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl (with gloss enhancer enabled):

This is the same LAB color space three-dimensional graph rotated on its X axis so you can see the top (lighter) and bottom (darker) portions of the graph. The area contained inside is the range of colors (gamut) this paper should be able to reproduce.

I then compared the Ilford papers with similar ones I’ve profiled on the exact same printer. In the images below, the white wireframe with the light white skin is the Ilford paper; the colored area with the gray wireframe is the paper I am comparing it to. When the white wireframe extends beyond or in front of the colored area, the Ilford paper has a wider gamut in the region of that particular color; when the colored area extends beyond the white wireframe and skin, the other paper theoretically has a great range in that set of colors.

Ilford Galerie Smooth Gloss

First let’s compare Smooth Gloss with a couple of other gloss papers I’ve profiled and used on my printer. In all cases, gloss enhancer was enabled.

Ilford Galerie Smooth Gloss (white wireframe) versus HP Instant-Dry Gloss (colored). In general, the Ilford has a wider color gamut (and overall was impressive in this regard), although the HP is slightly better in the darker blue-green region as well as a portion of the reds.

Ilford Galerie Smooth Gloss (white wireframe) versus Red River UltraPro Gloss 2.0 (colored). Again, the Ilford generally has a wider gamut, with some slight exceptions - especially in the red-violets.

Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl

Now let’s turn our attention to Smooth Pearl, this time comparing it to a pair of luster papers I’ve profiled and used on my Z3100 (again, with gloss enhancer enabled):

Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl (white wireframe) versus Epson Premium Luster Photo 250 (colored). Yet again, the Ilford has a wider color gamut, especially in the saturated blue-violets. Although the Epson paper slightly outperforms in the yellows and reds, note the hollow where the Ilford outperforms in the oranges - that will come into play later.

Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl (white wireframe) versus Breathing Color Vibrance Luster (colored). These two papers are a pretty close match, with Breathing Color extending a little further in the dark turquoise region as well as red-violet, while the Ilford does better in the oranges. Both foreshadow results I saw in the print tests.

In general, the Ilford papers have an excellent, wide gamut, particularly in the lighter colors - although some other papers do edge it out in some darker areas. For the record, I did download the Ilford-provided profiles as well, and in general they had a smaller gamut, with the exception of extending further down into the blacks. Ilford makes a point that they optimize their profiles for their papers; this extension may be to help compensate for any minor shortcomings in the shadows.

next page: print tests

Well, it so happens Manfrotto generously loaned me one of their 055CXPRO4 carbon fiber 4-section tripods to go along with the 327RC2 handle-grip ball head I reviewed earlier. I knew it would be lighter; what I didn’t know is if it would be a stable as my normal aluminum sticks for studio work or heavier camera/lens combinations in the field. Assuming at least some of you might have the same questions in your mind as me, I wanted to share my results.

The Specs, In Context

The Manfrotto 055CXPRO4 carbon fiber plus magnesium Q90 4-section tripod weighs 3.75 pounds - roughly a 1-1.5 pound weight savings over aluminum 055 series tripods. Despite this, it can hold a camera plus lens combination of up to 17.64 pounds (for reference, a Canon 5D mkII plus 70-200mm 1:2.8 L IS II weighs 5.9 pounds), which is 2+ pounds higher than its aluminum brethren. It is just under 21.5” long closed, 53.35” extended with the center column down, and just under 67” with everything extended. Rounded rubber feet are at the base of each leg (sorry; no hidden metal spikes like on their heftier 3221WN we still have). As expected, the head platform has the standard 3/8” male screw plus bubble level; three screws underneath optionally provide additional friction.

The legs have individual ratcheting locks that hold them at 23, 47, 66, or 89 degrees to vertical, allowing them to go essentially flat. The center column does not reside in a center tube, meaning that when it is up, you have additional ground clearance between the legs. If you raise it all the way and depress the spring-loaded release pin at its base, it can be lifted up and rotated down 90 degrees to extend horizontal, and then slide through the oval-shaped carrier seen in the image at right -  thus, the “Q90” portion of the name. This versatility has me really kicking myself that I didn’t bring it on an excursion to Horseshoe Bend earlier this year; as seen below, I couldn’t quite get my body in a comfortable position to capture in the entire bend - but with this tripod and a remote shutter control, I could have safely hung the camera out over the precipice and got the shot.

What Was I Worried About?

Any concerns I had about the strength of this tripod proved to be unfounded: It was very stable, both in the field and in the studio - indeed, much more so than lower-end metal tripods. The combination of these 055CXPRO4 sticks plus the 327RC2 head reviewed earlier provide a very nice combination of light weight plus tight feel. The other thing to keep in mind is that unlike aluminum, inherently stronger and stiffer carbon fiber does not bend, depriving you of the lovely experience of a leg that will no longer retract (I know some of you have been there).

The light weight was a real bonus not just for extended hiking distances, but also for when additional agility was required, such as stumbling around cactus and scrub brush in pitch-dark conditions. The only nit I have to pick - and it’s a very small one - is a combination of lighter weight and increased friction of carbon fiber compared to aluminum means the leg sections don’t willingly slide down under their own weight when you release their latches; you have to use a free hand to extend them, which adds a couple of second onto quick setups.

Such luxury does come at a price: The 055CXPRO4 has a street price in the $350-450 range; its three-section sibling runs $320-400. That’s more than twice what you will pay for a comparable set of aluminum sticks (including Manfrotto 055-series aluminum tripods). But for a professional making money off of hiking miles into the back country or around a sporting venue for those hard-to-get shots, the reduced weight may well pay for itself in reduced chiropractor bills.

Our photographs and artwork, as well as content contained in our books, videos, blogs, and articles for other sites are all copyright Crish Design, except where otherwise attributed.

As I tend to use higher quality lenses and longer focal lengths, I bravely assumed I could pretty much ignore it. Until it slapped me in the face. Here’s how to identify it, and correct it in Adobe Photoshop.

Identifying Fringe Elements

The image at the top left of this page exhibits chromatic aberration: Look for the cyan fringe where the dark vertical rock edge meets the sky. (Note that it is nowhere near as apparent where a lighter section of the rock meets the sky; high contrast is one of the conditions that make chromatic aberration apparent.) This is different than edge artifacts you might have seen due to over-compressing, over-sharpening, or over-color-enhancing an image, each of which is shown below:

The above edge artifacts are caused by over-compressing an image (left), over-sharpening it (center), or applying certain extreme color correction settings such as maxing out the Vibrance (right).

Fixing It in the Adobe Camera Raw Dialog

I am moving toward performing as many as my image corrections and enhancements as practical inside the Camera Raw dialog: Changes performed here are nondestructive, and carried alongside the original image rather than appearing just in a specific edit of the image.

It so happens that Adobe Camera Raw has a section for curing lens issues such as chromatic aberration and vignetting. (By the way, you can also add vignetting here for creative effect.) Zoom in to at least 100% and carefully adjust the slider corresponding to the color fringe you see until to disappears, but not so far that a fringe of a complementary color - such as red is to cyan - starts to appear. Note that if you rotated your camera 90 degrees to take a portrait rather than landscape oriented shot, the fringing will appear along horizontal rather than vertical lines.

Fixing It in the Lens Correction Filter

If you prefer to work on your images after the Camera Raw dialog has processed them (or didn’t shoot in Raw in the first place), you get another crack at fixing chromatic aberration in Photoshop’s Filter > Lens Correction effect. Note that even though Photoshop uses an image’s metadata to identify the camera, lens, and focal length used, I have found I cannot rely on its automatic settings; in this photo’s case, it removed only about two-thirds of the fringe present in the worst areas of the image (and again, the amount of fringing can vary depending on the image content).

Instead, disable Auto Correction, click on the Custom tab, zoom in to 100 or 200%, and tweak the appropriate slider to taste. Two things to note: One, you get one more color fringe combination option in the current version of the Photoshop Lens Correction filter than you do in the current version of the Adobe Camera Raw dialog, although Camera Raw offers an additional Defringe option - more on that below. Two, the parameter values inside Lens Correction and Camera Raw do not line up: My particular fix required a certain negative value in Camera Raw, and a larger positive value in Lens Correction.

(Creative note: Unlike chromatic aberration where the Photoshop Lens Correction effect has more options, the Vignette controls are more powerful in the current version of Adobe Camera Raw: In addition to the Lens Correction section of the Raw dialog, also look under Post Crop Vignetting in the FX section.)

Purple Haze

A different kettle of fish is a purple fringe you might see in some images, especially around specular highlights. There are several potential causes of this, including issues with particularly small sensors (which rely more on microlenses to amplify the light hitting each photosite). The chromatic aberration advice given above won’t fix this purple fringe. If you manage to catch it in the field, try underexposing the image or changing your camera angle slightly to reduce the strength of blown-out specular highlights, as this is the biggest problem area. This is also a case where you might want to try Adobe Camera Raw’s Defringe set to Highlight Edges, as it focuses on specular highlights.

All’s Well

I cannot emphasize enough how the amount of chromatic aberration you notice will change from photo to photo depending on the contrast present in it, the length of lens you use, and how sensitive you are to its potential existence. The image I used above was shot with a Canon 5D mkII and its bundled 24-105mm lens shortened all the way up to 24mm (with a Hoya HMC Super UV[0] clear filter on the end); the amount of fringing was reduced just by shooting the same scene at 28mm, and often unnoticeable in other images from the same excursion (in the Bisti Wilderness area in New Mexico) that were otherwise shot with a length of 24mm.

Just for eye candy, below is the final version of that image, as well as a few other selects from the hike:

Our photographs and artwork, as well as content contained in our books, videos, blogs, and articles for other sites are all copyright Crish Design, except where otherwise attributed.

The first one came out great. However, the second one didn’t match what we saw on screen. Obviously, I had a bit of egg on my face, after just proclaiming to the world I had the answer for reliable, correct digital printing. However, a bit of sleuthing revealed:

1. It wasn’t my fault - but…
2. I could have fixed it before wasting paper and ink - and losing face.

It’s an Imperfect World

First off, it bears repeating: Just because you’re using a correct color-managed workflow doesn’t mean the final print is going to match what you see on your screen; it just means you’ll get the closest match possible given the limitations of your tools. Monitors, printers, and paper are all imperfect, and each is imperfect in its own way. And synthetic, computer-generated images such as the ones I was printing for her (as well as heavily color-enhanced photographs) have a greater probability of having out-of-gamut colors that your monitor, printer, or paper may not be able to reproduce.

Color profiles document those imperfections; color management does its best to compensate for them. Adobe Photoshop has a feature called Proof Colors that gives you an opportunity to view those imperfections before printing. Problem is, although the Proof Colors setting is remembered per image while you’re in Photoshop, it defaults back to off when you open an image fresh - and I failed to enable it when I opened these images, before printing them. Too bad; it would have pointed out the problems I encountered before I encountered them.

The Proof Is In The…

Enabling Proof Colors requires just a couple steps:

1. Turning on View > Proof Colors. It may be toggled off and of quickly by typing Command+Y on Mac (Control+Y on Windows).
2. Setting View > Proof Setup to Custom, and then in the Customize Proof Condition Dialog that opens, setting the Proof Conditions to match the printer/paper combination you intend to use:

Here is the result of enabling Proof Colors:

The top image is a screen capture with Proof Colors turned off; the bottom image is a screen capture with Proof Colors on. Notice the slight desaturation and reduction of contrast, as well as the wispier areas bending toward violet. image #2842163 courtesy duncan1890/iStockphoto

If I had enabled Proof Colors before printing, I could have added a couple of adjustment layers and attempted to minimize these shifts before printing. (Another option for other situations is experimenting with the Rendering Intent settings, as this affects how out-of-gamut colors are compensated for; it had no positive effect in my case.) Yes, I would still have the imperfections of my monitor to deal with, but I would be a lot closer to The Truth.

It turns out the above image was particularly problematic; we’ve had trouble in the past with the blue-through-violet range confounding both cameras and printers alike. The first image we printed - with docile reds through grays - had far less of an issue:

The top image is with Proof Colors off; the bottom is with Proof Colors on (Z3100, Breathing Color Luster). Almost indistinguishable - and it printed that way, too. image #1569319 courtesy Atropat/iStockphoto

In Praise of Custom Profiles

The image pair above was the result of using the “stock” color profile provided by HP for Breathing Color Luster, dated 2007. As it so happens, I had used the Z3100’s built-in profiling feature to create a custom profile for my particular printer and paper stock in 2010. Interestingly, my profile contained fewer compromises than the stock one, showing how useful it is to go ahead and have custom profiles made for your printer, using whatever your current ink and paper stock are as sometimes these improve over initial production. I’ll repeat the original images so you can more easily compare them side by side:

Top: Original image, proofing off. Middle: My personal 2010 color profile, proofing on. Bottom: HP’s 2007 color profile, proofing on. Although both of the proof images show a reduction in contrast, my custom profile exhibits slightly less color shift.

Don’t Forget the Document’s Color Profile

Every document has a color profile of its own, based on either on how it was captured (i.e. the profile of the device it was shot or scanned on), or in some cases the profile of the monitor the artist was looking at when they created it. Used to living with lowered expectations, I assumed these stock images must be in lowest-common-denominator, often-default-setting sRGB, but some research - as well as comparing them to iStock’s web thumbnails viewed through a color-managed browser (Safari on Mac) - turned up that iStock uses the wider-gamut Adobe RGB as their recommended standard.

You can use Photoshop’s Edit > Assign Profile function to set the profile for untagged images, or ones you suspect may have been tagged incorrectly. In this case, there was a significant visual difference between sRGB and Adobe RGB:

Top: Adobe RGB profile assigned; bottom: sRGB profile assigned. Proofing is off in both cases. Note the Adobe RGB version has more cyan in the middle. Aesthetically, I prefer the sRGB one, but the Adobe RGB version is a more accurate representation of the creator’s intent - assuming they processed and tagged the image correctly before sending it to iStock…

Of course, I knew all of this; in the heat of the moment, I just forgot. What would Socrates have said?

FTC Disclosure: We bought the HP printer and Breathing Color paper out of our own pocket, with no manufacturer subsidy. We have relationships with both Adobe and iStockphoto, which do result in us getting software and images for free. However, my sister picked the images, and we’ve used Photoshop since long before we met anyone at Adobe.

Our photographs and artwork, as well as content contained in our books, videos, blogs, and articles for other sites are all copyright Crish Design, except where otherwise attributed.

 

]]> tag:prophotocoalition.com,2011:index.php/170.4562 2011-02-18T21:41:29Z 2011-10-05T16:41:30Z Chris Meyer chris@crishdesign.com http://www.crishdesign.com One old theory of knowledge was that we were born knowing everything (having gained that knowledge in a previous life), and it was just a matter of “remembering” that which was obvious once explained. Well, with all due respect to the ancient Greeks, color managed print workflow - the best way to ensure what you print is as close as possible to the original image - is not obvious, and being a relatively recent development in the world of photography, we don’t have knowledge from a prior life to draw on.

That said, neither is it unknowable - and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to learn it yourself. After watching fellow artists beat their heads against the wall or print endless tests hoping to land upon the magic combination that works for them (and having done that very thing myself several years ago), I thought it would be worth outlining the basic workflow to create repeatable, as-accurate-as-circumstances-will-allow printing. Yes, there will always be devilish details and inevitable exceptions, but this will give you a solid foundation to build on.

Forging Order From Chaos

To understand the need for a color-managed workflow, first you have to start by accepting:

• Every model of computer monitor may display your image differently.
• Every model of printer may spritz ink onto your paper differently.
• Every type of paper may receive your ink differently.

That’s why a magic incantation that works for one artist may not work for you, and why you could go through a lot of paper, ink, aspirin and hair printing test swatches to find a spell that does work for you.

The good news is: Once you know enough about each of the above points, you’ll no longer be dealing with infinite combinations; you’ll be defining a simple workflow that will get you a lot closer to your goal with minimal effort.

The major points of this workflow are as follows:

• Use paper that is “coated” for inkjet printing.
• Get a “profile” that describes your printer/paper combination, and load that into your image editing software when getting ready to print.
• To make accurate changes while viewing your monitor before you print, tell your computer what type of monitor is connected to it.

Sound easier than expected? Actually, it is that easy - as long as you execute each of those steps correctly.

To remove the aura of voodoo that surrounds digital printing, I’ll explore what’s going on underneath the hood for each of these steps. Since it’s impossible for me to know what operating system, software, printer, and paper you happen to be using, I’m going to have to keep most of this advice fairly generic (sprinkled with examples using our most common combinations: Photoshop CS5 on a Mac, connected to either an Epson 2200 or HP Z3100 printer), although I promise none of it is too difficult to execute yourself.

Inkjet versus Laser; Dye versus Pigment

For the sake of this article, we’re going to focus on inkjet printing, rather than toner-based laser printing. Laser certainly has its places - we have a color laser printer in addition to inkjet printers - but in general, most archival fine art printing is done with a variation of an ink jet printer.

And don’t skip over that word “archival” - most inexpensive inkjet printers aren’t. If the fine print says your inks are dye-based, they’re probably not archival; if it says they’re pigment-based (like fine art paints are), then they probably are archival.

So that’s my first asterisk: If you haven’t already, move up to a pigment-based inkjet printer as soon as possible. Just in case you create something that you don’t want to fade away sooner rather than later.

Choosing Your Paper

Most paper is fine for writing on. Most is fine for heat-fusing toner onto (i.e. laser printing). A lot of it is even acceptable for drawing and painting. However, virtually no paper in its unaltered form is good at receiving tiny dots of colored ink and keeping them in their place. Those dots tend to blot out to the surrounding areas (softening the image as a result), or not get soaked up properly (resulting in problems with color, contrast, and saturation).

Because of this, you’re much better off if the paper has an inkjet receptive coating applied to it. This absorbs the dots of ink more efficiently so that your colors, contrast, and saturation look as good as you could hope, and stops individual dots of ink from spreading so that the image remains sharp.

Copier paper doesn’t have this coating. Fine art paper for drawing, painting, or traditional printmaking doesn’t have this coating. Most handmade or decorative papers don’t have this coating. If an accurate image is your goal, you need to get paper that explicitly says it is for inkjet printing - and preferably from a fine art paper or higher-end printer manufacturer, rather than an office supply vendor (because not all inkjet coatings are created equal).

Good paper can be expensive. Some resellers (such as InkJetArt.com) as well as paper manufacturers (such as Breathing Color) make sampler packs or “trial kits” available so you can try out a variety of papers and see which you like before you make a big investment. I like to collect paper samples and print test images I am familiar with on them, carefully noting both the paper and settings I used. I can then refer to these later when choosing a paper for a particular job.

Without a Coat

Time for our second asterisk: If the paper you really, really want to print to is not inkjet coated, you have three options:

1) Coat it yourself, using Inkaid or Golden Digital Ground. The result still probably won’t take an image quite as nicely as commercially-formulated inkjet coated paper, but it will take it a lot better than if you didn’t coat it. Coating will even allow you to print to surfaces not originally intended for fine art prints (more on that in a future article).

2) Failing that, get a custom color “profile” made for that paper (discussed next), and print anyway: Your image will still be lacking a degree of contrast and sharpness, but it will be a lot better than if you printed without a custom profile.

Having a custom profile created for an uncoated paper (lower left) will get you closer…but still nowhere near as good as professional, inkjet coated paper with a good profile (upper right - Arches Infinity with one of Bill Atkinson’s profiles).

3) Failing that, crank up the saturation in your image processing program. See if your printer dialog has an option that allows you to adjust the “ink load” printed to paper - if so, crank that up as well. These steps will help you combat the inevitable lack of contrast that comes from printing to paper not coated to receive your printer’s ink. But really - you’re better off with coated paper, or at least a proper profile.

next page: using profiles to tell your software how to get the most out of your printer and paper

 

]]> tag:prophotocoalition.com,2011:index.php/170.4523 2011-02-14T17:31:43Z 2011-10-05T16:41:44Z Chris Meyer chris@crishdesign.com http://www.crishdesign.com A few years ago, I made a decision: I was going to save every image I shot using the Camera Raw file format. This decision is as automatic as waking up for professional photographers, but may bring apprehension for many amateur and semi-pro shooters. Indeed, I dare say more are creating multi-image HDR files (thanks to the profusion of tools available today - even for cell phone cameras!) than using Camera Raw. Therefore, I’d like to walk through how Camera Raw saved what would have been an otherwise unusable shot in hopes that it helps convert a few more into taking advantage of this format.

First: Some Background for the Uninitiated

In most medium-quality and all high-end digital cameras, the image sensor captures more visual information in terms of lights, darks, and shadings of color than is saved to a typical JPEG file. The camera has to make decisions on what to keep, what to throw away, and what to bend to try to fit into a JPEG file’s limited capabilities (which are even more limited if you’ve left the camera at its default sRGB color profile).

Many of these cameras offer options to keep more if not all of the sensor’s valuable information by saving the image to a Camera Raw file instead. The better the sensor in your camera, the more information that Camera Raw file will contains - just waiting to be exploited in the name of either recovering realism or creating images that are richer than reality.

It’s tempting to think that you only need Camera Raw for “real” photos (i.e. ones clients are hopefully paying for), and that it’s not important for “casual” shots such as those taken on hikes. And who has time to tweak every shot in a Camera Raw dialog before they even open it? However, my feeling (and experience) is that sometimes you encounter a potential shot under casual circumstances that you really want to be a keeper - so why let your camera throw portions of it away before it even hits your memory card?

Snow and Ice

Like many, we were recently hit with heavy snows and sub-zero temperatures. The results were really quite amazing - especially around our heated, constantly-recirculating water features. I ran out quickly with my Canon 5D mkII and snapped off a few photos in semi-automatic mode before I became a human popsicle. When I got back inside and looked at the unprocessed images in Adobe Bridge, I was deeply disappointed: They were quite blown out. Below is one such untreated Camera Raw image. Below the photo is a histogram that shows the distribution of color values is on the right. In most cases, you would prefer that these values be well-distributed across the histogram’s width, and not too crowded to either end; the crowding to the right - including the warning indicator illuminated in the upper right corner - confirms that this image is way too bright:

original image

What follows is an explanation of how I recovered a useable shot out of this blown-out original. It’s not an entirely accurate blow-by-blow, as making adjustments in the Adobe Camera Raw dialog tend to be iterative: You tweak this, see what effect it has, then go back and tweak that to compensate. However, I can tell you that it took less time to actually perform these adjustments that it will take you to read about them. Also, this is certainly not the only “solution” - just as art is subjective, there’s more than one way to create a pleasing image from what your camera sensor presents you with.

The Road to Recovery

Since the image was blown out, my first step was to reduce the Exposure setting (which I would have done manually when I shot the image if I wasn’t afraid of getting frostbite). Reducing it by a full stop reveals detail in the snow and on top of the rock that were previously washed out or clipped at full white:

Exposure: -1.00

You can see from the histogram above how the Recovery parameter took some of the values crowded into the highlights on the right and separated them into their own peak comfortably below the highlights. In the image, this can be seen as shadows reappearing in the snow, and separation between the ice and the surrounding show.

Next, I have a personal preference for a high degree of contrast in my images, so I tend to experiment with increasing the Contrast slider to see what I can get away with. This is the result of cranking it all the way up:

Contrast: +100

I like what it did to the top surface of the rock; it also helped separate the ice from the rock’s vertical faces. However, as a result I also lost details in snow as well as in the dark rock face. First, let’s work on recovering the details in the highlights by increasing the Recovery slider:

Recovery: +100

Next, let’s elevate the information buried in those shadows by increasing the lifesaving Fill Light parameter:

Fill Light: +60

By studying the histogram, we can see how the previous peak in the shadows at the left have now been distributed across the lower quarter to third of the value scale. This is seen visually as the separation of the colors in the rock’s unpolished face compared to its darker polished sides and top.

I know it seems like I am doing a push-me-pull-you by first increasing the contrast, then apparently undoing its effects by increasing Recovery and Fill Light - but I was unable to get the same separation of values otherwise. It is instructive to compare the histograms from before the contrast adjustment (left) to the histogram after the recovery and fill light tweaks (right). Much better separation was achieved as a result:

(Of course, I welcome learning a better way to accomplish this same result; I suspect more time spent in the Tone Curves would have been one solution).

The resulting histogram also tells me that by adding in so much fill light, I’ve raised my black point as well. To re-ground it, I carefully increased the Black level until the left portion of the histogram curve nearly reached all the back to the left extreme again. Among other things, this really improves the water ripples on the top of the rock, grounding the darks where the water is thin while allowing the specular highlights to remain near white:

Blacks: +29

Now we enter the subtle enhancement phase. Following on from with my personal taste for high contrast, I like to increase the Clarity parameter to give a more defined edge to my objects; it was particularly useful here to help further separate the rock from the snow.

I also like to add a touch of Vibrance (a kinder, gentler alternative to Saturation) to help the colors pop a little. I like what it did to the rock face; I’m still debating the blue cast in the shadows in the snow - it’s a reflection of the blue from the partly-cloudy sky, but I feel the snow would look more realistic as shades of gray:

Clarity: +38; Vibrance: +50

Aside from the snow shadow color issue (which I could have cured with more carefully targeted corrections), the only thing still annoying me is the lack of contrast in the snow behind the rock. Truth be told, there wasn’t much there in the real world; the wind-smoothed snow was smooth, and the diffuse light on the partly cloudy day wasn’t helping develop what few shadows there were to be had.

All of the adjustments so far had been under the Basic tab in the Adobe Camera Raw dialog; a trip under the Tone Curve tab would be required to tease more detail out of the grayscale values. A mild decrease in the Highlights helped define the shadows without washing away too much of my hard-won contrast:

Highlights: -25

(I also made some tweaks in sharpness and noise reduction, but those are not evident in these lower-resolution online images.)

Back in the Real World

These adjustments were a lot more drastic than are typically required; I picked an extreme example to help illustrate a point. And one more experienced in digital darkroom skills could have take this image much further than I did. Either way, it’s better to light a scene and set up your camera’s exposure to capture a good image to start with and then merely enhance it after the fact. However, that was not an option in this particular run-and-gun situation. Also, I should emphasize that there is no way I could have recovered this much detail from the JPEG the camera saved; large portions of the highlights would be gone forever, and I probably would have had issues with posterization in trying to recover other details.

Is Camera Raw a magic bullet? Not always; sometimes the actual exposure is just too far out of range to recover useful information without unpleasant posterization or noise. Also, not all Camera Raw files are created equal: They are heavily dependent on the quality of your camera’s sensor. I can recover quite a bit from shots taken with the 5D and it’s sensitive full-frame sensor; I can recover only a slight amount of detail from Camera Raw files saved by my considerably less expensive Panasonic FZ35. Still, the Camera Raw version is far better than the JPEG files either camera saves.

In short: If you’re a semi-pro or serious amateur looking to raise your game, becoming comfortable with the Camera Raw workflow is one very important step you should take.

Our photographs and artwork, as well as content contained in our books, videos, blogs, and articles for other sites are all copyright Crish Design, except where otherwise attributed. Other examples of my mixed media work may be found on my artist web site.

 

]]> tag:prophotocoalition.com,2011:index.php/170.4464 2011-02-04T22:17:27Z 2011-02-04T22:25:28Z Chris Meyer chris@crishdesign.com http://www.crishdesign.com More people are experimenting with combining timelapse photography and motion control to create wonderful “videos” using still image cameras. One particularly lovely one is The Chapel by Patryk Kizny of LookyCreative. In addition to some of the nicest motion control timelapse moves I’ve seen (way beyond your typical horizontal slider bar movement) and a stunning setting (an abandoned, derelict Protestant temple in Zeliszów, Poland built at the end of the 18th century), Patryk also employed HDR (High Dynamic Range) capture and processing to pull details out of the interior of a building illuminated only by windowlight.

HDR is a powerful tool that opens an entire new palette of artistic choices. Do you use it subtly to tame otherwise blown-out highlights and recover just a hint of information in the shadows, such as in the “dust in rays of light” scenes below:

Or, do you use it create an almost-synthetic, dreamlike rendition of a scene that sometimes goes as far as to look like a pencil or pastel rendition, as in the “flatly lit” interior shots below:

My personal preference is strongly for the former rather than the later; perhaps because I also have done 3D CGI, and am used to it being a pale imitation of rich reality - so I am less inclined to want to go in the opposite direction. But I’m not the artist on the piece; Patryk is.

In the “making of” video below, Patryk shares details of the techniques he employed - including the motion control work, HDR processing, and editing and finishing in Apple Final Cut Pro and Color:

Patryk has also generously created several tutorials on timelapse photography as well as post-production techniques such as image stabilization in Adobe After Effects on his web site.

 

]]> tag:prophotocoalition.com,2011:index.php/170.4448 2011-02-03T04:59:32Z 2011-02-03T05:07:33Z Chris Meyer chris@crishdesign.com http://www.crishdesign.com I really appreciated the move up from our old 6 MP (megapixel) Canon 10D to a 21 MP Canon 5D mkII: Not only could I print larger images with respectable resolution, I could also pull finer detail out of an image, or zoom in on and crop down to a relatively small portion of the frame. But of course, this is tiddlywinks compared to really high-end digital camera backs, where 80 MP is defining the new high end. The well-respected Michael Reichmann of Luminous Landscape notes “if you step up from a 24MP or smaller DSLR you’ll be stepping into the bizzaro universe, where resolving tiny flecks of mascara on a model’s eyelashes from 20 feet away becomes commonplace, and being able to clearly see telephone wires at a distance of 2 miles always amazes.”

Michael had a chance to play with two new 80MP models - the Leaf Aptus 212 (approx. $32,000) and Phase One IQ180 ($43,990) - both of which sport full-frame 645 sensors (60 x 45 mm) compared to the 5D mkII’s 35mm full-frame sensor (36 x 24 mm) in addition to their insanely high resolution. I highly recommend you read his Phase One IQ180 and Leaf Aptus II-12 reviews, as well as watch his interview with Leaf’s Product Manager Yair Shahar and Phase’s U.S. Vice President Kevin Raber (at the same time, sitting on the same couch).

No, I’m not saying you have to go out and buy today. But it’s always good to be aware of what’s possible.

]]> tag:prophotocoalition.com,2011:index.php/170.4430 2011-02-01T04:50:36Z 2011-09-18T20:20:37Z Chris Meyer chris@crishdesign.com http://www.crishdesign.com As some of you no doubt know (but which I just discovered today), Gizmodo regularly has a set of shooting challenges. The most recently posted results concern shooting a night, but an exposure long enough that the result is bright enough to be mistaken at first glance as daylight. The result tends toward pastel colors and dreamy motion blur of objects like the sea and clouds. I’ve been having a lot of fun taking advantage of the Camera Raw dialog to tease more out of photos shot with my 5D (which seems to have a couple of stops of latitude - a lovely sensor resides inside that body), but this opens a whole new area to explore.

Although they’re hardly day-for-night, this is as good an excuse as any to share a few photos I took at night of a very bright moon behind broken clouds. The moon heavily illuminating their “silver lining,” with a touch of the watermelon sunset colors this part of the country is known for.

These were all shot hand-held (image stabilized lens) with my 5D mkII shortly after I got it, ISO 3200, f/4.0, with exposures ranging from 1/13 to 1/2 of a second - much shorter than the 6-30 seconds typical in the Gizmodo challenge winners. After seeing the above Gizmodo piece, I went back into the Camera Raw dialog and played with higher amounts of Fill Light and Highlight Recovery on some of them to see what I could get.

Like I said - this points to an area that seems well worth exploring. Enjoy.

Our photographs and artwork, as well as content contained in our books, videos, blogs, and articles for others sites are all copyright Crish Design, except where otherwise attributed. ]]> tag:prophotocoalition.com,2011:index.php/170.4428 2011-02-01T00:06:52Z 2011-10-05T16:41:54Z Chris Meyer chris@crishdesign.com http://www.crishdesign.com Here in the East Mountains of New Mexico, a pair of winter storms are rolling in. Fitful flurries were followed by miniature styrofoam pellets were followed by real snow, which is now accumulating on any horizontal perch in the perfect still. As dusk was falling, I noticed one of our new seedlings in the courtyard was accumulating snow on its thin branches, so I ran outside quickly with the 5D and snapped some pictures. This was the best (before I started getting too wet); I took several shots until I was happy with the framing of the foreground versus the background. When shooting in show, it’s hard to find contrast; I kept moving around until I was happy with what the dark rock was doing as a backdrop, and made sure the aspen on the left and red rock on the right framed rather than distracted from the foreground.

For those who care about settings: Canon 5D mkII with stock 24-105 mm lens, handheld with image stabilization on, natural light (very gray, actually), f/4.5 at 1/40 sec (ISO 400). Below left is the untouched JPEG out of the camera; at the right is the lightly cropped and processed Camera Raw image. Obviously, I boosted the contrast (to make the snow on the seedling stand out from the other snow as well as the background objects), and also increased Clarity and Vibrance to add punch. I didn’t touch Recovery or Fill Light; it was gray enough outside that the highlights weren’t blown out and the shadows were sufficiently filled in. Normally vignetting (darkening of the corners) is considered to be a negative quality of a lens, but in this case I decided to heighten the effect to further draw focus to the center of the frame, and lend a bit of a “timeless” feel. I accomplished this by playing with the Curves, lifting the Highlights and dropping the Lights to further increase the contrast (if you want to see screen shots of the Raw dialog, let me know in the Comments below and I’ll add them).

Can’t wait to see what the landscape looks like tomorrow… Our photographs and artwork, as well as content contained in our books, videos, blogs, and articles for other sites are all copyright Crish Design, except where otherwise attributed. Other examples of my mixed media work may be found on my artist web site. ]]>