Help needed please.

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Jonleeper

Original Poster:

664 posts

228 months

Thursday 19th March 2015
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I have reached the limits of both my technical ability to take the photo and my processing ability to get the result I need, so I'm hoping that someone here can help. So here goes,

SWMBO is an artist and has been asked to send some photographs of her work for a gallery to look at. THe pictures are painted onto slate. I have been taking photos, which have been good enough for Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Helenaleepercrafts?fref=photo), but they are not good enough to show off her work properly. I am not sure if it's my photography technique or just that I cannot process the images properly. I have iploaded a ciouple of examples of my photos to photobucket and will attach them here, if I'm sucessful! The main problem is that the colours are just not true and the photos are all very "flat". I'm not sure how to describe it but the real thing really "pops" and the pictures just don't. The closest is the giraffes but the cormorant has golds and other colours that really don't show up.

I am taking the shots outside or in her studio, with daylight LED lighting, and trying not to use flash as it reflects on the slate.

So am I making some mistakes in my technique or am i just crap at processing? ;-) Any help really desparately needed. I am happy to pay someone a few beers to take some decent shots, if ther is anyone in the Deal or Dover area, but would prefer to know what i am doing wrong as I will then be able to take more pictures in the future.

Many thanks,

Jon






DibblyDobbler

11,256 posts

196 months

Thursday 19th March 2015
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Are you doing any processing Jon - ie Photoshop or the like?

Some very simple adjustments would make a big difference I think - eg brighten them and maybe add some contrast.

PS - what camera?

Jonleeper

Original Poster:

664 posts

228 months

Thursday 19th March 2015
quotequote all
DibblyDobbler said:
Are you doing any processing Jon - ie Photoshop or the like?

Some very simple adjustments would make a big difference I think - eg brighten them and maybe add some contrast.

PS - what camera?
Thanks for the responce. I've tried using Lightroom 5 but I only seem to make things worse! When I brighten it just washes out and the contrast appears to skew the colours. I'm sure there must be a way to make them better, I just don't know it, yet.

The camera is an old Cannon 10D, I think. It's at home so I'll check tomorrow when i get back and let you know.

DibblyDobbler

11,256 posts

196 months

Thursday 19th March 2015
quotequote all
Jonleeper said:
Thanks for the responce. I've tried using Lightroom 5 but I only seem to make things worse! When I brighten it just washes out and the contrast appears to skew the colours. I'm sure there must be a way to make them better, I just don't know it, yet.

The camera is an old Cannon 10D, I think. It's at home so I'll check tomorrow when i get back and let you know.
Hmm - sounds like you are on the right lines with your processing: basics like brightness, contrast, saturation should get you most of the way there. 10D is pretty long in the tooth so I wonder if it is maybe holding you back a bit - for a modest outlay you could get a big step up in your hardware. Be interesting to know the lens also. Are you shooting in RAW? That should give you better scope to make adjustments.

S. Gonzales Esq.

2,556 posts

211 months

Thursday 19th March 2015
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It's a shame you're not near Bristol - copying artwork for repro is one of the things I do occasionally.

The 'proper' way to do it is with two lights fitted with polarising filters, each at 45 degrees to the painting. With another polarising filter on the camera you can adjust things to remove as much reflection as you need.

I say 'as much as you need' because if you got rid of it all then they won't look like slate any more. If there's gold or metallic paint used this will be an issue too. There are a range of techniques you can use to retain some of the feel of the original - some in-camera, some using Photoshop.

If you're not shooting RAW, the camera's colour handling will cause issues with accuracy. Does the camera have a 'neutral' or 'faithful' setting? If you have a calibrated grey target you can set a white balance manually in the software which would be a start.

DibblyDobbler

11,256 posts

196 months

Thursday 19th March 2015
quotequote all
Had a quick go at the cormorant in Photoshop Elements - big whack of contrast, little bit of brightening and saturation added. Difficult without seeing the original but is this any nearer?


viscountdallara

2,811 posts

144 months

Thursday 19th March 2015
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ETA.. Beat me to it !

Jonleeper

Original Poster:

664 posts

228 months

Thursday 19th March 2015
quotequote all
S. Gonzales Esq. said:
It's a shame you're not near Bristol - copying artwork for repro is one of the things I do occasionally.

The 'proper' way to do it is with two lights fitted with polarising filters, each at 45 degrees to the painting. With another polarising filter on the camera you can adjust things to remove as much reflection as you need.

I say 'as much as you need' because if you got rid of it all then they won't look like slate any more. If there's gold or metallic paint used this will be an issue too. There are a range of techniques you can use to retain some of the feel of the original - some in-camera, some using Photoshop.

If you're not shooting RAW, the camera's colour handling will cause issues with accuracy. Does the camera have a 'neutral' or 'faithful' setting? If you have a calibrated grey target you can set a white balance manually in the software which would be a start.
Funnily enough I'm sat in Bradley stoke! I work here through the week and then travel home to Kent most weekends. If possible I would love to meet and pick your brains about how to do this better.

Simpo Two

85,147 posts

264 months

Thursday 19th March 2015
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Send them to me - details via website on profile - and I'll bash them into shape for you (though not having the originals for comparison they will be 'best guess' re colour).

ExPat2B

2,157 posts

199 months

Thursday 19th March 2015
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CloudedLeopards by pistonheads_tests, on Flickr

If you look at the histogram in photoshop you can see the problem. The image is all crowded into the middle, the blacks are not black and the whites are not white.

Classic early canon image exposure. Fortunately you can fix it easily with curves in photoshop, use curves as then you don't wash out/change the colours like lightroom does with contrast changes.

I have done some image repro and if you want colour accuracy you need to shoot with a colour checker passport and follow a workflow.. I have used the twin polarised flash technique but prefer to shoot outside on overcast days and take a custom white balance if possible.

Jonleeper

Original Poster:

664 posts

228 months

Thursday 19th March 2015
quotequote all
ExPat2B said:
CloudedLeopards by pistonheads_tests, on Flickr

If you look at the histogram in photoshop you can see the problem. The image is all crowded into the middle, the blacks are not black and the whites are not white.

Classic early canon image exposure. Fortunately you can fix it easily with curves in photoshop, use curves as then you don't wash out/change the colours like lightroom does with contrast changes.

I have done some image repro and if you want colour accuracy you need to shoot with a colour checker passport and follow a workflow.. I have used the twin polarised flash technique but prefer to shoot outside on overcast days and take a custom white balance if possible.
What do you mean by a colour checker passport? Do I need to put a known colour sheet in the frame, kind of like the printing checks on the packets of cerial.

Jonleeper

Original Poster:

664 posts

228 months

Thursday 19th March 2015
quotequote all
Simpo Two said:
Send them to me - details via website on profile - and I'll bash them into shape for you (though not having the originals for comparison they will be 'best guess' re colour).
I'll do my best. Thanks.

S. Gonzales Esq.

2,556 posts

211 months

Thursday 19th March 2015
quotequote all
Jonleeper said:
Funnily enough I'm sat in Bradley stoke! ...
That's a bit of a coincidence!

Drop me a PM and we can arrange for you to pop in - I'm 2 minutes from IKEA. Even better if you could bring one of the paintings with you.

Jonleeper

Original Poster:

664 posts

228 months

Thursday 19th March 2015
quotequote all
S. Gonzales Esq. said:
Jonleeper said:
Funnily enough I'm sat in Bradley stoke! ...
That's a bit of a coincidence!

Drop me a PM and we can arrange for you to pop in - I'm 2 minutes from IKEA. Even better if you could bring one of the paintings with you.
PM sent. Thanks
Jon

S. Gonzales Esq.

2,556 posts

211 months

Friday 27th March 2015
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It turns out that the OP is currently working only a couple of miles from me, so he popped in during the week and we had a go at copying a couple of the slate pictures.

Here's the result, and a 100% crop to show the detail:







As suspected, the traditional approach of using cross-polarised light to eliminate reflections didn't produce a satisfactory result. This method concealed the texture of the slate and the shine of the metallic paint used on the wings, so we ended up creating a composite from three separate shots, shown below.

From left to right they are:

- Fully polarised - saturated colours, but very little texture.
- Lit mostly from the right, part-polarised - good texture, but not very saturated
- Lit through a diffuser to pick up the metallic paint - no texture, but shows up the gold well




These were processed in Capture One, layered on top of each other in Photoshop, and combined using layer masks and a couple of adjustment layers to tweak colours and levels. The end result is a pretty good representation of the original, but it's often surprising how much work it takes to make a photo look like the real object.


DibblyDobbler

11,256 posts

196 months

Friday 27th March 2015
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clap Well done Sir

K12beano

20,854 posts

274 months

Friday 27th March 2015
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Well - that's great....


...and I learnt something just from sitting here with my bag of popcorn....



clap

Jonleeper

Original Poster:

664 posts

228 months

Wednesday 1st April 2015
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Firstly a quick thanks and update to both Tony and John who have both helped enormously. Tony has posted his pictures and I’ll upload the ones that John did this evening so you can see what was possible from just a better, and more skilled, person from my originals.

Secondly I have been offered the “long term” loan of some Contax lenses from my father who bought them just before 35mm became a thing of the past. Now knowing him they would have been the best available at the time and one, I think, might be ideal for this purpose. Now Tony suggested that I shoot at about 135mm on my best zoom to get optimum results but one of the lenses I’ve been offered is the T* Sonnar 90mm f2.8 which, if I’m working correctly, should become a 144mm on my EOS 10D, a 1.6x sensor. Now everything I’ve read seems to suggest that this prime will outperform my zoom massively and that buying a £40 adaptor is a no-brainer to use it. Is this correct or am I barking up the wrong tree? Also if I am going to try and use the Contax lenses is it worth updating my camera body a little, bearing in mind I have next to no budget at all!?

Many thanks,

Jon

Simpo Two

85,147 posts

264 months

Wednesday 1st April 2015
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I think the main issue is not the lens so much as lighting and later white balance/RAW processing.

Jonleeper

Original Poster:

664 posts

228 months

Thursday 2nd April 2015
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Simpo Two said:
I think the main issue is not the lens so much as lighting and later white balance/RAW processing.
I'm fairly certain it's actually the wetware hardware interface that's the problem! ;-) Back on topic though I think, from what I can Google, that the Contax glass can I our be an improvement so I'll see what I can find for an adaptor.

Thanks again,

Jon