I2E Image Editor Discussion

Andy

It's that time of year, folks. Many of us will be gathering in our homes, celebrating the holidays. Out come our cameras, and our flashes. Wouldn't you like to get great shots like this?


Let's hear from an expert in this situation, our Very Own Baldy, and find out how he gets such great exposure, and color. Whether he's shooting zillions of fancy classic cars at the Concours d'Elegance, or a cattle call with Santa, Baldy gets it right, at shoot and in post. Hours of Photoshop? Not.

I'm hoping that if we shout loud enough, Baldy will come to this thread, and talk about how he sets up at time of shooting, and then what he does afterwards. Camera settings, and what about gear, flash, flash technique, shooting style (composition, etc.)? What do you use in post :ear Yo, Baldy!!

:1drink :eat

Enjoy (fun and well-exposed) photography,

saurora

I'm subscribing to this thread...I'm always bummed at how holiday photos turn into ....well....something you throw in a drawer or box!

sirsloop

git r duuunnnn :rambo

Baldy

Hahaha... Thanks, but I'm awed with your photography a lot more than by my family snappies.

Tip #1: Cheat. You too can get the exposure, shadows, and skin right in post with a cheat no one will know about except us, and I might not tell (although I can tell you cheated at a glance).

The cheat is to use i2e: http://www.colour-science.com

You can buy it pretty cheaply online and whip through lots of photos fast. I still use Photoshop for special things, but these snappies with just flash mounted on camera got passed through i2e in the blink of an eye and I threw them online with no Photoshop.

Andy is a major convert and fan too and can give all the latest about how to get it.

I'm on the run at the moment but when I get a chance I'll show those shots before and after i2e.

Why has no one heard of i2e? Must be marketing, because the product rocks.

Andy

Baldy wrote:

Hahaha... Thanks, but I'm awed with your photography a lot more than by my family snappies.

Tip #1: Cheat. You too can get the exposure, shadows, and skin right in post with a cheat no one will know about except us, and I might not tell (although I can tell you cheated at a glance).

The cheat is to use i2e: http://www.colour-science.com

You can buy it pretty cheaply online and whip through lots of photos fast. I still use Photoshop for special things, but these snappies with just flash mounted on camera got passed through i2e in the blink of an eye and I threw them online with no Photoshop.

Andy is a major convert and fan too and can give all the latest about how to get it.

I'm on the run at the moment but when I get a chance I'll show those shots before and after i2e.

Why has no one heard of i2e? Must be marketing, because the product rocks.

http://blogs.smugmug.com/great-prints/2005/06/24/the-sweetness-that-is-i2e/

There's more to it than that. You also use the flash well, at time of shoot. You provide great light. Bounced. Diffused. Not much evidence of the nasty harsh flashy thing.

i2e? You guys should really give it a try. It's quite amazing. See the link Baldy gave.

Zanotti

I can find the site and how to download a sample software, but no place to actually buy.

Do you buy from the manufacturer or an outside vendor? Must you use the 20 day trial first then be contacted?

How's this work? Can we run them through smugmug's license?


OK,OK I found it under software - not an especailly easy way to find it......

Andy

Zanotti wrote:

I can find the site and how to download a sample software, but no place to actually buy.

Do you buy from the manufacturer or an outside vendor? Must you use the 20 day trial first then be contacted?

How's this work? Can we run them through smugmug's license?


OK,OK I found it under software - not an especailly easy way to find it......

Click "image editor" on the left hand side. Send them an email and you'll get a demo license key.

There's also a plugin to Photoshop (win only).

Zanotti

This is very cool stuff. The interface is a little clunky, but the quality of the result is outstanding!

One issue I have is that the interface truncates off the bottom third on my 12" laptop. I cant scroll down and do not have access to the bottom 10% of the screen or the individual adjust buttons.

I did a work around by putting some photos in a folder and pushing adjust all, but that isnt as precise as I would like.

Think this is a trial issue or just more of a clunky interface?

Baldy

Andy wrote:

You also use the flash well, at time of shoot. You provide great light.

I'll come back to i2e, but it turns out I just hate the look of light straight from a camera-mounted flash.

So the first thing I always do is look for surfaces I can bounce off of, meaning a white wall or ceiling that's close enough to where I'm gonna take the pic. I was lucky in this house because it had a fairly low white ceiling.

The second thing is I don't like the flash to be brighter than the room lights. Then it casts a big shadow and the rest of the room looks dingy. So I always go around and turn on every light in the room, light candles, shoot towards windows, etc. And I keep the flash output around the level of the house lights if I can.




I just think it adds a lot of good cheer to see light flowing in from outside the room and to have no dark corners.

Shima

ie2 and graininess

Is it just me or do the pictures get a bit grainy after some fixes? Been playing with the trial and it seems some look grainier after color alterations. Do I need to change a setting?

Andy

Shima wrote:

Do I need to change a setting?

Yes, don't use too much shadow recovery. In Image Editor, I have it at the next-to-lowest-setting.

Baldy

Shima wrote:

ie2 and graininess

Is it just me or do the pictures get a bit grainy after some fixes? Been playing with the trial and it seems some look grainier after color alterations. Do I need to change a setting?

The preview image goes horribly grainy instantly, but when you click the save image button, it does a much better job of processing before saving and should give much better results.

One of the things i2e does is bring up the shadows, and as Andy says, it usually brings them up too much for my tastes. As a default, I bring up the shadows half as much as their default setting.

Outside on sunny days when shadows are harsh and the ISO of your camera is turned low, I bring up shadows much more and it really helps. I'll post examples later.

Shima

Baldy wrote:

The preview image goes horribly grainy instantly, but when you click the save image button, it does a much better job of processing before saving and should give much better results.

One of the things i2e does is bring up the shadows, and as Andy says, it usually brings them up too much for my tastes. As a default, I bring up the shadows half as much as their default setting.

Outside on sunny days when shadows are harsh and the ISO of your camera is turned low, I bring up shadows much more and it really helps. I'll post examples later.

What percentage is best? I lowered it from 100 down to 50 in the options where you can set defaults and that seems a bit better, would this still be a bit too high or just about right? Thanks

Any other defaults I should tweak differently?

Zanotti

I too noticed this instant grainieness, but then see it much smoother after saving.

I am using their Image Editor as a beta trial and I must admit to being very impressed - but mostly impressed with people shots. I did a bulk revision of a bunch of indoor basketball, that I had pushed to iso 1600 and -3/4ev to stop motion blur and I was very pleased with the bulk corrections.

This program is in my stable for a while - I will purchase a home license after the trial period.

The result:



Before:

Shima

Zanotti wrote:

I too noticed this instant grainieness, but then see it much smoother after saving.

I am using their Image Editor as a beta trial and I must admit to being very impressed - but mostly impressed with people shots. I did a bulk revision of a bunch of indoor basketball, that I had pushed to iso 1600 and -3/4ev to stop motion blur and I was very pleased with the bulk corrections.

This program is in my stable for a while - I will purchase a home license after the trial period.

The result:
Before:

Wow! awesome results I'll post some of mine later

ziggy53

There are times that bounce flash isn't practical, even though I prefer it.

The following images are all using a homemade "scoop" reflector on a Sigma 500 Super flash in ETTL-II mode, attached to a "flip" bracket and using a Canon off-camera cord. Exposure was manual at f2.8 and f4, with 1/200sec shutter, ISO1600. These are at night, in my father's print shop. Ambient light was about half of the flash exposure. Camera was a Canon XT with Sigma 18-50mm, f2.8 EX lens. Post-processing was reasonably minimal, and I used Picassa and Neat Image (demo).

These are from last weekend, when we celebrated my mother's birthday.



My mother:


Her cake, furnished by my sister:



My sister Kate:


Will, one of my nephews:



My Aunt Zelma, with Will's dog:


My daughter Whit, with her dog Deisel:


The cost of materials for the "scoop" was less than $5USD, so I'm pretty pleased with the results. The reason I didn't use bounce is because the room has very high ceilings, and a fairly sharp angle.

ziggy53

ChuckWC

Zanotti wrote:

...
The result:



Before:

That IS impressive! Not only did it improve the brightness and contrast, it also moved the players around!

Khaos

While it is more expensive, I use Pixel Genuis Photokit Color 2.

http://www.pixelgenius.com/color2/index.html

One option allows for you to adjust up or down by quarter stops and it also makes burning and dodging much easier with autmation along with a ton of other color techniques. Fantastic product. I already used their fantastic sharpener product before purchasing this one.

ivar

ChuckWC wrote:

That IS impressive! Not only did it improve the brightness and contrast, it also moved the players around!

Zanotti

ivar wrote:

Man, you guys have good eyes!

Nice catch!

Shima

A little fustrated w/ that program now...

I went to options and set it to save originals in a subfolder... instead I had two copies of the modified ones, which really sucked since it added too much grain for my tastes into a lot of my darker ones and I wanted to revert but couldn't...

Oh well... guess I'll have to wait until tonight to reshoot my Hanukkah shots....

Zanotti

Hard to blame the program for operator error!

BUT, as I indicated earlier, its a clunky interface and you need to be careful to watch your folders. I have two, input and output and put those on the screen before I say adjust all.

Good luck.

Shima

Zanotti wrote:

Hard to blame the program for operator error!

BUT, as I indicated earlier, its a clunky interface and you need to be careful to watch your folders. I have two, input and output and put those on the screen before I say adjust all.

Good luck.

Do explain how "save originals in /original subfolder" would result in it *not* doing this. That's the part I don't get.

Andy

Shima wrote:

Do explain how "save originals in /original subfolder" would result in it *not* doing this. That's the part I don't get.

I just save my originals in another folder that I create and specify.

Baldy

Shima wrote:

What percentage is best? I lowered it from 100 down to 50 in the options where you can set defaults and that seems a bit better, would this still be a bit too high or just about right? Thanks

That's a very good question...

i2e comes with the default at 100. At SmugMug for our autoadjust default, we use 50.

For my own shots, if I'm in a hurry I pick 100 for outdoor shots and either 0 or 50 for indoor shots, depending.

Outdoors, it's really great for making shadows less deep in faces.

On this group of shots where some were outdoors, some indoors, and I didn't have time to go through each shot independently, I just set it at 50. Here's what the different levels look like on the shot Andy posted earlier:



You'll notice i2e identified Ann's hair as a shadow area and kept bringing it up. I don't particularly like that and maybe would have preferred this shot to have no shadow adjustment. That's one of the downsides of having to pick one number for autoadjust. If I did this for 10 other shots, you might pick a different shadow amount for each, but in our experience 50 is the best compromise.

I also bring up the overall brightess by 10 points by default.

Shima

Baldy wrote:

That's a very good question...

i2e comes with the default at 100. At SmugMug for our autoadjust default, we use 50.

For my own shots, if I'm in a hurry I pick 100 for outdoor shots and either 0 or 50 for indoor shots, depending.

Outdoors, it's really great for making shadows less deep in faces.

On this group of shots where some were outdoors, some indoors, and I didn't have time to go through each shot independently, I just set it at 50. Here's what the different levels look like on the shot Andy posted earlier:



You'll notice i2e identified Ann's hair as a shadow area and kept bringing it up. I don't particularly like that and maybe would have preferred this shot to have no shadow adjustment. That's one of the downsides of having to pick one number for autoadjust. If I did this for 10 other shots, you might pick a different shadow amount for each, but in our experience 50 is the best compromise.

I also bring up the overall brightess by 10 points by default.

Yeah in that case I like the no shadow... thanks for the advice on percentages Helps alot.

DoctorIt

So before this turned into an i2e discussion, it was about getting good simple and impromptu shots at the holidays....

It's after the holidays, how'd everyone do? Paying more attention to my flash bouncing this year and snapping away a little bit more got me this:



Almost no work in post, and this wasn't even in RAW. Just some good technique (and a bit of luck ). Even the little black dog, who is impossible to photograph as those of you with black pups know, came out nicely!

Thanks to this thread for the inspiration.

saurora

Well, this year the pressure was on. Everyone else forgot to bring their camera or their memory card, so capturing photos was all on me!!! I've only used my flash a couple of times so it was pretty confusing. I wanted to bounce the flash and use for catch lights and fill. Walls were painted green so stayed away from them. I neglected to remember a very minor detail... that the ceilings were 2 stories high and vaulted! Ok...so a little under-exposed, except in the kitchen where the ceilings were low and tops of heads were a little hot. I have lots to learn still with flash, but hey, I have pictures unlike the rest of my family! Had some major issues with skin colors, especially on this first shot taken outside on the patio at night with a light that caused some weird colors. I re-worked it tonight after re-reading the skin tute and I think it looks much better. If things look "off"...let me know!!! Other big issue for me...low light made it tough for auto-focus and tough for my lousy eyes to manually focus. Here's a few of my favorites. We celebrated Feliz Navidad style!











Of course, one of the kids is invariable OOF....


And one of the adults invariable blinks their eyes!!!

DoctorIt

Look's like Saurora's xmas was quite the fiesta!

pathfinder

I wrote about using off camera flash for family candids here

Here is a result of that exploration, shot in a room that was too dark to read in

Shima

My pregnant sister-in-law (7 months along):


Obviously I didn't take this one (though it was done on my camera), but gotta throw it in, the husband, me, and his parents dog:


My husband unwrapping the Pirates Monopoly I got for him (he collects monopoly sets)


Read the shirt and understand this man, my father in law, is a pastor. His oldest daughter got it for him


Guess she liked the ornaments (my mother in law)


Not a fan of the shadows, but my in laws look happy: