I.) OUTLOOK
Everybody is talking about his personal or even his perfect workflow.
What does that mean ?
Let's start by looking the term workflow up in the dictionary.
Workflow at its simplest is the movement of
documents and/or tasks through a work process.
More specifically, workflow is the operational aspect
of a work procedure: How tasks are structured,
who performs them, what their relative order is, how
they are synchronized, how information flows to
support the tasks and how tasks are being tracked.
No matter how you call it, what I am talking about here is simply explained: How can we achieve
the result we are aiming for ? How can we optimize and streamline the various steps ?
How can we reproduce results that we consider to be worth being reproduced ?
II.) What do we need ?
* The raw image. Be it a slide, an enlargement or a RAW file from our digital camera
* A Scanner in the case of analog raw material like a slide or a photo negative
* An Image Storage and Management System ("Image database")
* A so called "RAW-Converter" in the case of a digital negative
* Image Manipulation / Printing Software
III.) How to get started ?
The very first step is to make sure one is using a color calibrated workplace. Either you will say "Of course ! What else ?"
Or you might wonder "What is he talking about ?" In the first case, well done and just go ahead. In the second case
I strongly recommend having a look at my How to calibrate the monitor tutorial. Having done that
we are ready to go ...
First one should make up his mind what to use the final image for ? Should it be published on the web ? should it be printed
using my own ink jet printer or should it be enlarged by an external service ?
The steps in preparing the the RAW file are the same, while the "optimizing for printing part" is slightly different.
IV.) Step by Step
1.)
Preparation of the file
2.)
Optimization of the RAW file
3.)
Finetuning of the .tiff file in Photoshop
4.)
Conversion into black and white
5.)
Printing
1) Preparation of the file
In case of a slide or enlargement the scan should have a resolution of 300 dpi for formats up to A4 or 150 dpi for bigger
sizes. I recommend to safe the file as a 16-bit .tiff and to chose a file name that makes it easy to find the file later on.
"scan_001" would be a really bad choice while "mark_birthday_04_120206" would make it obvious that
we are talking about picture number four taken at Marks birthday the 12th of February 2006. Who is Mark ? Well you know what
I mean.
After scanning of the set of images to be worked on, the files are stored in an archive or burned to CD/DVD for later use. NEVER
directly modify the original file !
In case of a file from a digital camera the RAW files are downloaded to the computer and stored in a specific folder describing
what shooting we are talking about. In our example "photography/RAW/mark_birthday_120206" would keep the files "img_001.raw",
"img_002.raw" etc.
Now a raw converter is needed in order to transform the camera specific raw format (like .CRW or .CR2 for Canon RAW files e.g.)
into .tiff files, which is saved in "photography/develop/mark_birthday_120206" ("img_001.tiff",
"img_002.tiff" etc.)
In case your camera is only saving .jpg files the situation is slightly worse, as e.g. exposure corrections are not really possible.
Just increasing the brightness is not helpful, if all details in a dark area are completely underexposed. Nevertheless, in case of .jpg files
as input, they should be saved as .tiff files first, in order to avoid saving .jpg as .jpg again where the compression would decrease
the image quality dramatically.
No matter from what we are starting, we have our photographs in digital format and should make sure they will be stored and
filed properly. One word of warning: From free to download image databases to really costly asset management software, the choice
is huge and somewhat confusing. No matter which solution one is going for. The idea is to keep all the image-files (and all means
that we can talk about hundreds of gigabytes !) well organized, easy to find again (" Could you just quickly print these few shots
from our trip to India 1998 ?") and safely. I will have a look at a few different software solutions in the software
section, Ref.(2), (3), (4), (9).
A first step to having all the files organized properly is the correct - or maybe I should better say meaningful attribution of
meta-tags. Photoshop itself offers a rather straight forward access to this. With your file open, just click File - File Info.
Starting with "Description", "Camera Data" over "Categories" up to "IPTC Contact"
and "IPTC Content" there are all the necessary fields (and even a few more) to be filled in. I would like to stress that this
little radio button on the upper right hand side allows to save templates - Unless you are a Rock-Star writing your own name a million
times is not very funny.
How much tuning of the file should be done in the RAW converter (Ref.(5), (6), (7)) ? A question of personal taste, of course. I would recommend
to apply color temperature corrections, exposure corrections, curve corrections and maybe a lens corrections in order to fight
against vignetting in the raw converter while sharpening, contrast, color balance etc. are better adjusted using Photoshop later.
2) Conversion and Optimization of the RAW file
Probably most of you will use the Photoshop RAW converter - there is nothing wrong with this. Especially if you want to get
a working file quickly and without using several different software packages. If you want to get out the maximum out of your RAW
file you should have a closer look The Capture One (see Ref.(6)).
In order to explain the single adjustments and correction options I take the Photoshop RAW Converter V 3.6 (see Ref.(5))
for illustration here.
Opening a .CRW or .CR2 file a window opens up presenting a preview of the image and several Settings to be adjusted.
In the "Adjust" menue the "White Balance" can be changed from the pull down menu or by
directly using the "Color Temperature" slider.
The "Exposure" can be adjusted from -4 up to +4 F-stops. In addition the sliders "Shadows" and
"Brightness" allow histogram adjustments, directly visible on top. Contrast or saturation changes are better
applied in Photoshop later.
A subtile "Curve" Correction (in order to avoid highlights being washed out (RGB 255,255,255) can be done
also here.
In case of visible vignetting the menue "Lens" allows a correction for this. The "Vignetting - Amount"
and "Midpoint" sliders are the ones to play with.
3) Finetuning of the .tiff file in Photoshop
As most photographers I use Photoshop CS2 (Ref.(1)). Of course there is other software out there, but in this chapter I will explain the
necessary steps assuming one is familiar with Photoshop CS2.
Levels are best adjusted manually in order to have the histogram ranging from the left (low tones, very dark areas called
low keys) to the right (high tones, very bright almost pure white areas called high keys).
To prevent having the low tones too dark, I would recommend a minimum value of around 10 while for the high keys the cut off value should
be maximum 250, in order to prevent having no ink at all applied.
With the help of the three pipettes selecting the darkest, the lightest and a middle grey area of the photo is fast and the result is
immediately visible.
Contrast adjustments are best managed using the Image - Adjustments - Curves menue. Starting
from a linear curve, one can drag the curve
up or down or create and s-shaped form with two or more anker points.
Removing of spots etc. is done with either the Clone Stamp or the Spot Healing Brush tool. While in the first case an area to be used as source has to
be selected, the second one is chosing "the right one" from the neighborhood. The size of the tool can de adjusted by right-clicking.
We are all lazy, I know it! Therefore I am creating something some people call "master file" This simply means that instead of
applying all the above mentioned corrections to the background layer and then saving the "final" piece of art,
I am creating "adjustment layers" for each single step. Like this all applied adjustments can be switched on and off and even
enhanced or reduced using the "Opacity" or "Fill" slider in the layer menu. Furthermore the history of the tuning of
the RAW file is nicely visible. Once we are happy with what we see, the .psd file can be saved as .tiff for printing, as a large .jpg to be sent
to a photo print service or a small .jpg for the web. The master file goes into the archive.
Resizing (Either via Image - Canvas Size or Help - Resize Image ) allows to adjust the
final dimensions either for printing or for the web.
Sharpening is the last step. The Smart Sharpen filter is doing an excellent job. Important to check that the picture
is looked at at 100 percent zoom in order to have a feeling for the effect. There are no clear rules how to play with the three values a, b, c
in order to achieve the best result. It depends strongly on the motive and also on personal taste. For a standard landscape or portrait picture
I usually start with values between 50 and 100 percent, radius around 1 pixel and schwellenwert 0. Here the old trial and error approach
is not too bad.
So far, so good. For those of you, who "want a little more" I have two Photoshop Plugins I can strongly recommend: AKVIS
Enhancer (see Ref.(12))
and Noise Buster (see Ref.(13)). The first is there in order to workout more detail in shadow areas (mostly underexposed parts of the
image) while the second
helps efficiently reducing noise that might have been intensified by the first one. For me these two are a fixed step within my workflow. I would
recommend to apply them directly after opening the file in photoshop. In case further fine tuning is necessary the Levels and
Curves corrections can follow. Cleaning, resizing and sharpening are the last steps in the chain.
4) Conversion into black and white
The simple Image - Adjustments - Desaturate or Image - Mode - Grayscale is not an option as the
the results look rather
undefined and low in contrast.
A much more subtile but still fast to manage way is the Image - Adjustments - Channel mixer. A bit similar to the
good old days when filtering
meant placing filters in the enlarger in order to manipulate the result, there are three sliders for red, green and blue together with
one slider labeld "constant". After clicking "monochrome" the three upper sliders can be freely moved, keeping
the sum 100 percent
- this is not changing the overall color distribution. Small movements of the "constant" slider is enhancing or reducing
the brightness.
I recommend to keep this value at 0 percent and adjust the brightness via the Image - Adjustments - Curves menue.
.. :: Toning :: ..
A customized tonig of the black and white file is easily done via Image - Adjustments - Photo Filter. One has the
choice between predefined
filters (warming, sepia, cool, etc.) and custom color. In both cases the density of the filter can be adjusted with the slider underneath.
Values between 20 and 50 percent are a good starting points. "Preserve Luminosity" should be activated.
For advanced users I recommend another very useful Plugin. I am talking about BW Workflow Pro by Fred Miranda (see
Ref.(14). This Photoshop Plugin works both for 8- and 16-bit files and offers a very intuitive workspace with many presets and possibilities
for custom manipulations (Duotones, Tritones, Quadtones, adding film grain, adding dynamic range).
5) Printing
.. :: Inkjet via Photoshop :: ..
In case the final image should be printed via Photoshop, the important thing is to set the options right.
"Color Handling :
Let Photoshop determine Colors",
"Printer Profile : (here the correct .ICC profile for the used ink/paper combination
has to be set)"
and "Rendering Intent: Relative Colometric" or "Perceptual".
In addition the "Black Point
Compensation" should be activated.
Here it is important to stress the via the printer driver
all color management options have to be switched off ! Photoshop is
preparing the file for printing and is taking care about color management. The printer has to shut up and just do what he is told.
Otherwise some completely unpredictable results are going to surprise you.
.. :: Inkjet via RIP :: ..
The highest quality in terms of gray balance is achieved using a
Raster
Image
Processor
(see Ref.(10), (11)).
For those of you who want to know the dusty theory:
A raster image processor (RIP) is a component used in a printing system which produces a bitmap. The bitmap is
then sent to a printing device for output. The input may be a page description in a high-level page description
language such as PostScript, Portable Document Format, XPS or another bitmap of higher or lower resolution
than the output device. In the latter case, the RIP applies either smoothing or interpolation algorithms to the input
bitmap to generate the output bitmap.
Raster image processing is the process and the means of turning vector digital information such as a PostScript
file into a high-resolution raster image.
Originally RIPs were a rack of electronic hardware which received the page description via some interface (eg
RS232) and generated a "hardware bitmap output" which was used to enable or disable each pixel on a real-time
output device such as an optical film scanner.
A RIP can be implemented either as a software component of an operating system or as a firmware program
executed on a microprocessor inside a printer, though for high-end typesetting, standalone hardware RIPs are
sometimes used. Ghostscript and GhostPCL are examples of software RIPs. Every PostScript printer contains a
RIP in its firmware.
A RIP chip is used in laser printers to communicate raster images to a laser
But above this, today dedicated RIP software is responsible in order to get absolutely neutral black and white prints
using ink jet printers, which in most cases have to "mix" the different grays using the color cartridge set
and black - in some cases with the help of an additional gray ink cartridge.
The image is prepared as described in the previous section. But instead of telling Photoshop "print it" the
.tiff file is loaded in the RIP application.
A more detailed manual can be found in my
Fineart Printing tutorial.
.. :: Enlargements by service provider :: ..
The amount of companies offering enlargements from digital files is growing like mushrooms after a warm
summer rain. And quite a few I tested were able to deliver decent or even above average results. How to prepare the
file for them ?
In case of a CD being brought or shipped to the shop the files can remain as .tiff files in their original resolution. Most
online services provide upload interfaces where hundreds of megabytes would be a bit too much. Here it's recommended
to keep the original resolution of the image but saving it as a .jpg without a strong compression (10 or even 12 e.g.). Like this
the file size is shrinking visibly while a good quality remains.
What about color management ? Well this depends on the quality of the service. For a good one it should be not more
than a phone call or email to find out which .ICC profile they are using or to even get this profile. In Photoshop
Edit -
Assign Profile or even
Convert to Profile embeds the matching profile and the print will look as it
should - assuming the monitor was calibrated before starting the preparation of the file.
In case a dedicated profile is not available or they just don't tell you
Adobe RGB (1998) is a good guess.
V.) Which software to use ?
One thing in the beginning: The amount of software useful for photographers is huge and many software companies are
offering excellent products. I don't have the time to test all of them and I don't want to ! So please consider my recommendations
as purely personal proposals (And, no, I am not paid by any of those mentioned here ...). In any case, the basic ideas described
above work as good with one or the other software. Of course the practical "How to" varies.
If you feel a very important application which would make all our lives so much easier is missing, feel free to let me know about it.
Ref.(1) Adobe Photoshop CS2 (Win; OS X)
Ref.(2) Adobe Bridge (Win; OS X) included in PS CS2
Ref.(3) Adobe Lightroom (Win; OS X)
Ref.(4) LightZone 2.1.2 (OS X)
Ref.(5) Adobe RAW converter 3.6 (Win; OS X)
Ref.(6) Capture One (Win; OS X)
Ref.(7) Raw Developer 1.6.2 (OS X)
Ref.(8) Irfanview (Win)
Ref.(9) Cumulus (Digital Asset Management) (Win; OS X)
Ref.(10) Quadtone RIP 2.5 (Win; OS X)
Ref.(11) Imageprint V6 (Win; OS X)
Ref.(12) Akvis Enhancer (Win; OS X)
Ref.(13) Akvis Noise Buster (Win; OS X)
Ref.(14) BW Workflow Pro (Win; OS X)
The versions of these software might change, or be already replaced by a newer version. I try to keep these links
up to date. But in case you find a broken link, please let me know!
Last Words !
in the beginning I was mentioning the perfect workflow. Is this the perfect workflow described here ? Probably not.
Over the years I have constantly improved and changed my methods and tools. So this is a changing and emerging process. I am happy
with the results obtained using the described steps and my clients are happy, too :-)
Not worth mentioning that I am constantly trying to improve. And of course, this document is subject of change.
Custom b&w Workflow
