# my other hobby is photography .



## plantnoob (19 Feb 2013)

thought id post a few samples of what i like to get up to when i get the time  been into photography for around 15 months on and off .


11 by mark pettican, on Flickr


8 by mark pettican, on Flickr


1 by mark pettican, on Flickr

i also do a fair bit of macro work , mostly insects in the summer


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## BigTom (19 Feb 2013)

Nice series Mark, I'm a sucker for a good seascape.

Exposures are spot on, they seem a touch oversharpened though.


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## plantnoob (19 Feb 2013)

thanks tom it could be because they are smaller on here maybe ? if you click the pic , then click it again on flickr to get to the original size it doesnt look so sharpened.


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## BigTom (19 Feb 2013)

I did click through to flickr... there's a definite sharpening halo around the tower, and sharpening artefacts in the sky and shadows as well where its picking up the noise. Not sure what software you're using but its easily avoided by slightly increasing the sharpening threshold and reducing the radius a touch. A smidge of noise reduction beforehand would also reduce it in some areas.

That's real nit-picking though and something anyone who isn't a photographer themselves almost certainly wouldn't notice!


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## plantnoob (19 Feb 2013)

yep just looked again and the contrast halo is indeed there around the roof .i always used to use unsharp mask , but have just started experementing with smart sharpen , and i agree looking back that it is a tad over zealous. as you say though a relatively easy fix . PP is probably my weakest area , and something i really should work on . im using photoshop cs5 extended . i suppose i could just zoom right in and get rid with the clone stamp , but it would probably be better to just start again from the original raw file .


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## BigTom (19 Feb 2013)

Yeah I always leave the sharpening as the very last thing to do after resizing, and do it on a separate layer so you can mask out areas like the sky which don't benefit from it. I find unsharp mask does a perfectly good job normally - my base settings are usually amount 80%, radius 0.8, threshold 3, obviously tweaked a bit for the individual image.


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## rolexbene (19 Feb 2013)

Yeah beautiful shots just shame about the noise, what ISO were you shooting at, at a guess I would say that due to the low light you were pushing the ISO a little far, and should of just compensated with a slower shutter whilst keeping the aperture high in order to keep everything well within depth of field.
What was the ISO out of interest?​


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## BigTom (19 Feb 2013)

rolexbene said:


> Yeah beautiful shots just shame about the noise, what ISO were you shooting at, at a guess I would say that due to the low light you were pushing the ISO a little far, and should of just compensated with a slower shutter whilst keeping the aperture high in order to keep everything well within depth of field.
> What was the ISO out of interest?


 
Flickr says ISO 100-200, so definitely from sharpening unless they were very under exposed and have been pushed a lot.


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## plantnoob (19 Feb 2013)

iso was only 100, 200 on the night shot . tbh on the 3rd shot i think the pp has been pushed a bit too far


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## rolexbene (19 Feb 2013)

plantnoob said:


> iso was only 100, 200 on the night shot . tbh on the 3rd shot i think the pp has been pushed a bit too far


Thats strange so what camera were you using, where you shooting in RAW? did they look grainy before processing? Strange that they would have that much noise if the ISO wasn't pushed.


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## plantnoob (19 Feb 2013)

canon 40d . the fact that i was stacking filters didnt really help . no real noise showing in the raw files , its more likely my lack of PP skills


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## rolexbene (19 Feb 2013)

No trying to plagiarise you but i spent a few mins doing a few tweeks, could do 100 times better using the original image, the thing with noise is that it is mainly apparent in the darker areas of contrast, so in photoshop you can de-noise the image, then by cmd+click on the strongest channel you can take a alpha map of the image just selecting the areas of contrast, you can then use this to apply a mask over a smart filter in order to cancel the de-noise filter in lighter areas that are not affected, going to stop now as I have a feeling I may be boring you to...... but if you want me to have a go at tidying up your originals you can email me them and I will have a shot, I know how much having a stunning shot like these means. Cheers


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## rolexbene (19 Feb 2013)

Ahh 40D that kinda explains it, I sold my dad my old Nikon D40 that was only 6MP or something, it was an amazing camera and with the right lens took some amazing pics, but when it came to low-light it was a nightmare, sensors have moved on a long way in the last 6 years.


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## plantnoob (19 Feb 2013)

no , youre not boring me at all ,the sky looks much cleaner after your edit . its always good to learn new techniques . kind of you to offer to work on the raw files for me , but i would prefer to learn to do it for myself. if i could be cheeky , rather than me emailing you the raw files , would you be willing to email or pm me step by step instructions for the technique you just described please ?


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## plantnoob (19 Feb 2013)

rolexbene said:


> Ahh 40D that kinda explains it, I sold my dad my old Nikon D40 that was only 6MP or something, it was an amazing camera and with the right lens took some amazing pics, but when it came to low-light it was a nightmare, sensors have moved on a long way in the last 6 years.


 
im hoping to upgrade next year , ideally full frame .


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## plantnoob (19 Feb 2013)

to further confirm that the raw file has been pushed too far , these macros are all higher iso . typically 400 to 500 . much less apparant noise .


trunky by mark pettican, on Flickr


out on a limb by mark pettican, on Flickr


hf2 by mark pettican, on Flickr


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## rolexbene (19 Feb 2013)

This is kinda a technique I just made up on the fly looking at your images, but this is what I did and just really relates to grainy images.
1. from filters, "select convert to smart filter" (This allows you to adjust filters after you have applied them )
2. from filters go to "noise" then "reduce noise" you can do this a few times if you want to get a smooth image, don't worry too much about losing detail (you will notice that it adds the filters now as layers due to the smart filter you added).
3. Ok so now we get the detail back, go to the layers panel and turn off the eye symbol next to smart filters to revert your image back to the original, then go to the channels tab next to layers and turn off all but one of the colours, you want the colour with the most contrast to be the only one visible, the image will now look black and white.
4. cmd+click on mac or ctrl+click on pc on the remaining cannel, and you will see that is makes a selection of the darker areas.
5. turn on all the channels again and go back to the layers panel, turn on the smart filter again.
6. you will see in the layers panel a layer called smart filter that has a white box next to it, this is a mask and depending on its colour can act as a block or mask against the denoise filter you added. ALT click on this white box and the screen should turn white, then press making sure your background colour is set to black press ctrl+backspace to fill the selected area with black. you can do this more than once if you wish to, the more you do it the less the de-noiser will affect the blackened area. Alt+click on the layer to get back to the original image.
7. Voila, thats all I did... P.S. creating new adjustment layers from the bottom of the layers panel is always the best option for editing basic properties, always try and work in a non destructive way as in you can alway turn on and off or turn up and down the opacity of your filters or adjustment layers. when making a selection if you press the "Q" button you can toggle quick mask allowing you to paint with black and white brushes, a selection, this is useful, for using a soft brush, creating blended selections.


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