Amphibians

Isn't this a fascinating image? The orange creature is stealthily approaching the absent minded toad. In a split second it will attack and devour the poor animal. The tension! The drama! This is what wildlife photography is all about. National Geographic, I'm ready for signing my contract!

Well, in reality those two fellows are not natural enemies about to enter a fight for survival. They were in the same glass cage at an exhibition on amphibians at Porto Botanical Garden. They actually stood in that position for more than an hour - no, they are not made of plastic. Maybe they were engaged in some kind of staring contest...

But there is another reason why I find this photo interesting. It was taken without a tripod, using an extension tube, through a not very clean glass, under quite bad artificial lighting and at ISO 1600. I've made some  adjustments on the tone curve and white balance. The color noise in the final JPEG, which is quite evident at this ISO level on the E-P2, was filtered out with Neat Image. I'm impressed at how this software can preserve sharpness and detail on the in-focus areas, while the rest of the image is made absolutely smooth. Silkypix, the RAW editor I use for all my post-processing work, doesn't even get close to this, both in terms of final quality and ease of use. Ironically, I've never been too preoccupied with noise on my photos, but after trying Neat Image I found a particular pleasure in watching the graininess disappear. Of course, grain can be nice on some photos, I did not forget that.

Here's another 1600 ISO photo treated in the same manner and shot in the same location. By the way, that frog did not move much either.

Olympus E-P2 + Zeiss Sonnar 135/2.8 + extension tube

A (frivolous) post-processing exercise

The way how images are perceived and evaluated is, of course, a very subjective issue. For instance, I don't generally appreciate heavily post-processed photos. I don't have anything against photo manipulation, as a principle. After all, the image starts being altered the moment one presses the shutter. It is just a question of personal taste how far one wants to go in digitally transforming the look of an image.

Out of curiosity, I used some basic tools in Silkypix to make the image on the left  look a bit gloomier. I used separate RGB tone curves, color tuning and vignetting control. Unlike some popular raw converters/editors, Silkypix does not allow for masking or localized actions. Nonetheless, I suppose that the result, shown above, can be considered technically reasonable. However, I still prefer a more classic - I would call it "subtler", but you might say I'm being pretentious - approach, like the B&W version below.

Pentax K10D + Zeiss Planar 50/1.4

The power of the S curve

Pentax K10D + Zeiss Planar 50/1.4

The photo above could be titled something like "After the storm." The sun light hitting the fog horn and the stone walls, under a still threatening lead-gray colored sky, just seems to be fitting for that title.

Actually, the previous photo was based on the one below, a low key shot taken on an overcast Winter morning. There was no storm before or after the shot...


The only post-processing consisted on adjusting the tone curve in Silkypix, giving it a slight S shape instead of the default straight line. This increased the lightness of the lighter areas and made the rest darker. By adding an appropriate number of control points on the curve, I was able to give it the appropriate shape and obtain the result I was looking for. It's interesting how the sky became much more dramatic after this transformation.

Unlike Lightroom, which allows only for changing pre-defined sections of the curve, Silkypix lets one add any number of control points, providing a high degree of control over the lightness adjustments.

In most applications, when the mouse cursor is placed over the photo, the corresponding point is shown on the tone curve. This way the user can identify exactly which are the parts of the curve that should be made lighter or darker. Sometimes, even subtle adjustments have a very visible effect.

I find using tone curves (sometimes just called "curves") an essential part of post-processing, much more intuitive and effective than simply adjusting contrast/brightness levels.

Take another example. The next photo was taken on the same day:

Pentax K10D + Zeiss Planar 50/1.4

This is the original image:

This time the purpose was to decrease contrast and lighten up the darker areas, so as to create a version with a softer light. The tone curve used was now a flipped S. Many may prefer the original, higher contrast, image. But I like the processed version, as it somehow reminds me of XVIII century naturalist paintings.

Of course, S shapes are not the only possibilities for tone curves. I might post later on the power of the "double S" curve...

Software choices

I shoot only in RAW. My workflow consists mostly of cropping (when necessary for improving composition), exposure correction, contrast adjustment (using the tone curve for a finer control) and, when converting to B&W, color tuning (making blue sky darker, for instance). I don't have much time (or interest) for heavy Photoshop-like processing, so I decided to go for a simpler software.

I've been using Silkypix 3.0 for RAW editing and conversion for over a year now. I chose it after comparing it against Bibble pro and DxO. I liked the straightforward interface and the quality of the results. I've also tried a Lightroom 2 demo recently. It's packed with fancy features, some quite useful, like a dodge/burning tool or a healing tool for dust speck removal. However, I found it sluggish and prone to crashes on my old trustworthy portable (Pentium 4, 3.2 GHz, 1 Gb RAM), so I'm sticking with Silkypix.

Silkypix 3.0

A major limitation with Silkypix, though, is the primitive photo management capability. To overcome that, I'm using Photo Mechanic 4.5 as image browser and cataloger. It is extremely fast sorting and previewing RAW files and Silkypix can be configured as an external editor.

Photo Mechanic 4.5

I know that most people are probably using Lightroom these days, but hey, I like being different (as long as I get the job done properly). I'm using a Pentax, remember?...

Oh and I almost forgot! For backing up my photos to an external hard drive I use Clone 2.1. It's a very simple little program that allows me to keep an updated backup copy of my RAW files.