Two scales and two different type of lighting techniques

JH · Post by JH » Sun Jul 19, 2015 3:13 pm

This is two scales that are up side down. I tried two different type of lighting techniques. The first one - that I like best in this case - is EPI light polarized so that the reflections are enhanced (the opposite of cross polarization). The second is light through the barrel of the objective.

255 pictures, 0,00055 mm stepsize, Nikon BD plan apo 40x NA 0.80, Canon 6D, removed sensor dust in Adobe LR, stacked with Zerene Stacker - mixed PMax and DMap. Before retouching from PMax to DMap I used the camera raw filter in Adobe PS to take care of the noise in the PMax file. Post processing identical for both pictures; smart sharpening, unsharp mask and curves in Adobe PS, no local adjustments.

Comments are wellcome

Regards
Jörgen

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun Jul 19, 2015 3:34 pm

Very nice images!

One question about workflow: do you have a reference for the procedure that you used to remove sensor dust in Adobe LR?

--Rik

JH · Post by JH » Sun Jul 19, 2015 4:24 pm

rjlittlefield wrote:Very nice images!

One question about workflow: do you have a reference for the procedure that you used to remove sensor dust in Adobe LR?

--Rik

Hi Rik

Thanks!

I use the "Q" tool.

In this case I went through all dots in the first and the last picture in the first stack. I passed this information to all pictures in this stack and in the second stack. I checked the second stack and found some dots that was still there and corrected those.

If I have a grey out of focus WB picture I use that one instead.

The trail from missed dots are easy to spot when the stacking starts, If I missed some dots I usually go back and remove them.

In this case I turned off all alignments so for a PMax only picture I could have done all dedusting afterwards - wich probably is better because I do not think that the dedusting in Adobe LR is foolproof. But I wanted to use DMap and dust tends to create round islands.

To minimize noise I do not do any sharpening in Adobe LR before stacking.

Regards

Jörgen

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun Jul 19, 2015 8:22 pm

Thanks for the writeup. I was concerned for a moment because your screenshot shows a Swedish version of Lightroom. But it happens that the tool is called "Spot Removal (Q)" in the English version also.

I see that its use is described in some detail at http://digital-photography-school.com/h ... lightroom/. That writeup seems consistent with what you've described, as far as I can tell, but let me know if there's something that I've missed.

--Rik

zzffnn · Post by **zzffnn** » Sun Jul 19, 2015 8:52 pm

Beautiful!!

JH · Post by JH » Mon Jul 20, 2015 1:43 am

Thanks zzffnn!

rjlittlefield wrote:Thanks for the writeup. I was concerned for a moment because your screenshot shows a Swedish version of Lightroom. But it happens that the tool is called "Spot Removal (Q)" in the English version also.

I see that its use is described in some detail at http://digital-photography-school.com/h ... lightroom/. That writeup seems consistent with what you've described, as far as I can tell, but let me know if there's something that I've missed.

--Rik

Hi Rik

You could add the obvious that it is important to use a large magnification, 4:1 or something similar. When doing this the easiest way to go through the entire picture is to start in a corner and then use the page up/page down buttons.

If you use an out of focus picture - like the first or the last in a stack or an out of focus picture of a gray card (which is good to have for WB anyway) - you get a lot of help by checking the box ("Visa fläckar" in Swedish which translates to "Show dust" or something similar) in the down left corner and adjust the slider so you only see dust.

Regards
Jörgen

JH · Post by JH » Mon Jul 20, 2015 3:26 am

This is a more finalized picture with some local adjustments and dust removal from the subject.
Regards Jörgen

Jacek · Post by **Jacek** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 8:19 am

good job, very nice

JH · Post by JH » Thu Jul 23, 2015 1:53 am

Thanks Jacek

Marek Mis · Post by **Marek Mis** » Thu Jul 23, 2015 5:30 am

Very nice and interesting images ! The last one is super !

Marek

pwnell · Post by **pwnell** » Thu Jul 23, 2015 11:26 am

I like the saturation of the second version of the first image the most, but I feel it has been oversharpened in the second iteration (perhaps sharpened twice - second time for export?)

JH · Post by JH » Fri Jul 24, 2015 10:09 am

Thanks for the comments Marek Mis and Pwnell!

Pwnell, I increased the contrast and darkness in the areas with "haze". Did a general curves adjustment and exported with some standard sharpeing.

I think it mostly is the curves adjustment that make the pictures look sharper than the first one.

This is an interesting and a tricky picture to post process - very hard light, a lot of false collours and empty magnification.

More comments are welcome.

Regards
Jörgen