DPP Assignment 2

Spent last Saturday doing the leg work for Assignment 2. Decided that the local Cathedral would provide plenty of photo opportunities that would give me the material for submission. It offers mixed lighting; high contrast and areas where there would be a need to use a high ISO. I was uncertain about the rules regarding the use of tripod so decided to use a monopod and this proved to be o.k.

I had to use a high ISO for nearly all the shots because it was a very grey day outside and there was very limited artificial lighting apart from the altar area which was being prepared for the following day's Services. I was fortunate insofar there were very few visitors so that access to the main part of the Cathedral presented no problems. I took some 41 images including one external that I planned to use for the 'flat' image and four in the Cloisters that I planned to use for mixed lighting. Internally there were plenty of high contrast images as well as mixed lighting and one or two opportunities for using a high ISO. My attention had been drawn to recently erected organ screens that were described as having vivid colours because they had been painted within the last 12 months. When I found them the only light was the soft diffuse light coming through nearby windows from outside. What I had found was a good example of a 'flat' image and this is the one I plan to use in my submission. It pays to look around because the type of image is not necessarily in the obvious place.

I spent a fair part of Sunday working with the images on the Computer (Photoshop CS5). They had all been shot in RAW and most of the enhancement was done in the raw converter. I used 'Camera Neutral' in Camera Calibration to avoid any enhancement and carried out a Lens adjustment. I set the White Balance using the White Balance tool. I used Curves to set the contrast overall. I found that 'Auto' exposure only gave satisfactory results in one or two cases. I added a great deal of Clarity (in the 60 - 70 range) as the images were essentially architectural. Vibrance I used sparingly.

The local Adjustment tool came in to its own allowing me to enhance areas without affecting other parts of the image. This was particularly useful in lightening area where detail was not evident because of the low lighting.

There was only limited work in Photoshop itself for the majority of images although I did find myself adjusting areas that I may have been able to do in the raw converter. I have found the converter does have limits and the tools in Photoshop offer a better chance of success. In addition it is possible to work on different layers and modify the effect to achieve the targeted change precisely.

I changed the Image mode to 8 bits (I work in 16 bits) and reduced the size so that they can be posted to my Tutor. I then applied sharpening as appropriate.

On reflection I should have taken a tripod so that I could take two or more bracketed images of a high contrast shot. It would also have been sensible to include a grey card to establish the correct White point thus avoiding the hunt through the image.