>Posted by Lynn Loeffel on Tuesday, July 22, 2003 - 9:15 pm: > >I agree, not a newbie question. I can see the difference the optics >create, but as for how Zeiss achieves this, I'm not entirely sure >myself. I look forward to hearing more about this from those who know >more. > >As for breathing Zeiss qualities into images created with other lenses >through photoshop - sorry, it just doesn't happen. Photoshop is one of >my stronger points since I use it for my work day in and day out. >There are many wonderful things it can do, some things seem magical, >but that isn't something one can create. However, that doesn't mean >you can't help an image. Matter of fact, I had some really rotten >looking images that were used in a catalog recently. I don't know how >the originals were created, but I managed to work on them hard enough >to improve them for a direct mail piece. There isn't any one magic >button in photoshop, but I tend to use a moderate amount of several >different things to achieve improvement. For ex&le, in this case, I >started with the raw image and dealt with any color balance issues >first. Sometimes correcting for color shifts will actually give you >more brightness in the image than you realize. (If your whites are >yellow, or your greens are cyan, correcting this can *seem* to sharpen >and increase contrast) Then, I might go in and adjust the levels, >usually on the CMYK setting. If it is a really tough image in need of >a lot of rescue, I'll go in individually on each of the color layers >(C, M, Y, K individually). After everything else looks perfect, I'll >go in and do the unsharp mask at half a pixel and adjust the other >slider bar only enough to improve the image, not enough to be unduly >noticed. Like I said, this doesn't make a Zeiss image, but it rescues >poor images enough to make them useful in my work (direct mail, >catalogs, ads, web sites etc). > >If anyone needs any particular help, I'm glad to try to help. -Lynn
Lynn,
Yes, I need help. Just couldn't find your direct off-list email address.
In the meantime, have a look at some restorations done by a friend on the Rollei gallery at:
Go to the restoration ex&le and you will see some 1963 slides fixed up by an automatic process and by Todd Belcher.
I have been able to do some reasonable work with Photoshop Elements 2, but I think the key to this whole thing is that it just takes a lot of practice and experience.
Todd had the full Photoshop system and he also seems to prefer to work in CMYK. Elements doesn't seem to offer that option.
What I really don't understand, just for starters, is why there are scanners on the market which produce 48 bit resolution but the digital management software available to the average user just doesn't provide for that. I think even printers exceed the dynamic range of the software.
I do know for sure that my flat panel display doesn't even come close to handling both ends of a grey scale step image I once found (but since then lost) on a website.
DAW
P.S. I have been doing photography, more or less, for at least 60 years and I am still not comfortable with the term "unsharp mask".