I know it's been said ad infinitum here and on other forums, but looking at the dng, there is a huge difference in the amount of detail available in the dng vs. the jpeg. It's easier to white balance, and a lot more shadow detail. Really, the difference is night and day between the two from a PP standpoint.

Of course, other than Blend IF, one could carefully select the sky and clouds with Color Select. Unfortunately, color Select does not completely differentiate between the sky and the buildings when I tried it, so I had to go back and deselect the buildings with the Quick Select tool, but that works fairly well. There is enough fine detail in the antennae on the roof line, that using a simple Quick Mask with a brush does not work well for this image. But it is fairly easy to do a selection of the sky and clouds versus the building for blending two images. I just found Blend IF the fastest and easiest.

So I used the blue channel in Blend if, and as John points out, it is not that there is no blue in the shadows, but that the blue is a much darker hue than in the sky that allows this to work quite nicely in this image.

The Blend If option is hidden in the drop down dialogue box obtained by clicking as shown in this image of the Layers palette.



Clicking on Blending Options in the drop down dialogue box brings up the previously displayed dialogue box



and as you can see, with the background layer the sky and the building silhouette, and the correct building image on the 2nd, upper layer, the blend if command passed passed all the blue from the lower layer, except the very darkest tones.

I learned Blend IF from rutt and the discussions in the book reviews about Dan's books.

How about an explanation of false gamma profiles for those of us who do not use them routinely.

It is interesting that the Colosseum was under exposed three stops, but that is exactly the difference sunny 16 predicts between sunlit objects and objects in shade.

I think the exposure was correct for the sunlight clouds in the sky.

Originally Posted by MarkR I know it's been said ad infinitum here and on other forums, but looking at the dng, there is a huge difference in the amount of detail available in the dng vs. the jpeg. It's easier to white balance, and a lot more shadow detail. Really, the difference is night and day between the two from a PP standpoint.

I also agree, Marc, but I did find more noise in the building from the dng file than I expected, but I guess when you lighten things up three stops, at ISO 400 even with a 5DMkii, you have to expect some serious noise. A little DeNoise 5 helped a lot. I think NoiseWare might have helped even more in Landscape mode.

It's reading ISO 400 on my screen, so +3 stops = 3200ish, which can be pretty harsh. I'm curious if you tried the ACR noise reduction-- I've generally found it extremely effective, and even the Topaz people say to put NR as close to the front of your workflow as possible.

Yes I did use the ACR Noise Reduction in my steps I outlined, Marc. I also used DeNoise 5 since I was working in CS5 64 bit ultimately.

Maybe I don't know how to do it well yet in ACR. I find it can help, and I "guestimate" it reduces noise in my hands by maybe 60 %, but nowhere near NoiseWare does for me.

I have just been doing some scans of posters printed in a magazine with VueScan. DeNoise 5 in CS5 reduces noise, but really does not descreen a printed image of a scan. NoiseWare recognizes the screen print, and on default just cuts it right out.

I really do wish we would get a 64 bit version of NoiseWare, but from what I have heard, that is not likely. Which will keep me going back and forth between CS4 and CS5.

And I stand corrected, I see that the second image of the Colosseum is indeed ISO 400, I had it in my head that it was ISO 100 like the first, but I did not check and verify. I will correct my earlier post and that does explain the noise better in the image. Thank You for bringing this to my attention.

I do agree with doing noise reduction early in the editing workflow as well.

pathfinder,

I need to take some time and go over your steps in detail. Your results are great.

Please take my totally dog poo attempt down.

In the future I will remember to include the steps i took.

Sam

Why not edit your post with your steps, Sam. I really want to encourage folks to join in and contribute, with specific steps, so that other readers can attempt to repeat their steps themselves. I know you only haad access to the small jpg here on the thread, and that makes your image far more brittle when trying to wrestle it into shape.

Or try the dng file that is available here -https://public.me.com/path_finder

Think on it, and if you really want your post pulled, I will comply.

I like Blend-If, as you can see and adjust its effects in real time. You can't do that so easily with a mask, especially if you're trying to base a mask on a channel combination. You have to try one, auto-level and curve it, and see what you get. And then go back and try another.

Where Blend-if works, it's great. It doesn't always work, unfortunately. I didn't think of using it here, but you found that it worked well.

In addition to problems like this, I use it to correct what channel blending sometimes does to the reds (dulls them). A Blend-if eliminating the blend in the dark parts of the Green channel corrects this.

Originally Posted by pathfinder How about an explanation of false gamma profiles for those of us who do not use them routinely.

I'll do that. It will take a few days, and I'll search the forum for other threads on this, possibly related to Dan's last book. The question is how deep to go, because this can take you quite deep into color spaces. But I think there's a way to discuss it at a very practical level, without all of the theory. And, in fact, that's how you use it, without thinking much or at all about the theory.

I think the exposure was correct for the sunlight clouds in the sky.

Yes, that's how I metered it, for better or for worse. I think for better, as I really wanted some sky drama in the shot.

First of all I'd like to add a few things about the exposure in the shot... Exposing for dramatic skies can be hard, since you have to mind the green/red balance in the raw file. In this case though, the file is pretty obviously underexposed, which only serves to exaggerate the problems with "getting the Colosseum back in shape".

Shot taken at ISO400, F/22 and 1/100s

Since a Canon camera was used, it would actually have been a lot easier (less noisy) if you shot it at ISO800 and the same settings - and you still wouldn't have clipped anything in the raw file....
-Or you could have shot it at 1/50s F/22 (or 1/100s F/16) in stead. Still no clipping in the raw.

This is what the image looks like in linear gamma, in the raw file.


........................................

Not that it matter for this exercise really, just FYI... :-)
I chose a few different paths when PP'ing this shot, but I imposed a few restrictions on myself to keep the workflow explainable.
*NO manual editing - this means no manually painted masks and so on. Only global adjustments
*NO Lab except if it really makes a difference

This is what I arrived at after using those restrictions - I'll try to get a step-by-step explanation of what I've done tonight, but I have to run now. Thought I'd have more time, but family activities awaits... :-)

Anyway, this is the finished result. I was going for a natural look, and I see now that I've left a bit of haloing around the leftmost part of the Colosseum/sky edge. I left the picture at a stage where I would think it's quite easy to continue working on a "personalized" look on the end result.

Originally Posted by TheSuede Since a Canon camera was used, it would actually have been a lot easier (less noisy) if you shot it at ISO800 and the same settings - and you still wouldn't have clipped anything in the raw file.... -Or you could have shot it at 1/50s F/22 (or 1/100s F/16) in stead. Still no clipping in the raw. ........................................ Not that it matter for this exercise really, just FYI... :-)

Thanks for the info.

I chose a few different paths when PP'ing this shot, but I imposed a few restrictions on myself to keep the workflow explainable. *NO manual editing - this means no manually painted masks and so on. Only global adjustments *NO Lab except if it really makes a difference

I am a great fan of global adjustments. LAB is just another tool, and some things are just easier and faster there, even if you could get the same result ini RGB. But I agree that it makes it more difficult to explain, as you can't assume a general LAB understanding.

I'm quite interested in your steps.