Dan Margulis Applied Color Theory
Suggestions for Photoshopping Fur
Suggestions for Photoshopping Fur
Posted by: "Louis Dina"
Sun Sep 9, 2007 7:36 pm (PST)
I photograph a lot of wild animals, many of which have
fur (otters, beavers, foxes, rabbits, etc). I always shoot raw and leave
all sharpening off in camera raw so that a totally unsharpened images is
brought into Photoshop.
I am wondering if anyone has suggestions for handling
fur, since I find that there is a very fine line between sharpening and
losing that soft, fuzzy quality. I have tried a number of techniques, but
am not 100% satisfied with any of them (blurring, localized sharpening,
slightly high radius sharpening, blend if sliders, etc)..
Any have any suggestions to apply maximum sharpening
without losing that touchable quality?
Thanks,
Lou Dina
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Re: Suggestions for Photoshopping Fur
Posted by: "Alistair Owens"
Sun Sep 9, 2007 8:00 pm (PST)
Lou,
Have you tried just sharpening on the Luminance channel
in LAB? This might give you the results you are looking for. Also I always
tend to favour some sharpening in the RAW converter. Despite its interface,
I find DPP sharpening set to 3 or 4 provides a very sound basis upon which
to build on in Photoshop.
Regards
Alistair Owens
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Re: Suggestions for Photoshopping Fur
Posted by: "George Machen"
Mon Sep 10, 2007 8:05 am (PST)
Check out these two products:
<http://www.focusmagic.com/>
<http:
//www.fixerlabs.com/EN/photoshop_plugins/focusfixer.htm>
They use a mathematical process called
"deconvolution," which is a different approach to sharpening
which largely, if not entirely, avoids the halos at edges with USM. It may
be what you need for animal fur because it's more subtle than USM.
Deconvolution is described here:
<http://www.reindeergraphics.com/index.php?option=
com_content&task=view&id=212&Itemid=158>
<http://www.reindeergraphics.com/index.php?option=
com_content&task=view&id=179&Itemid=127>
... but they would be the first to admit that their
Photoshop plug-in really isn't intended for the audience on this list, but
rather for science & medical labs; there's just too much baggage with
their package for our kind of work.
Basically, the out-of-focus bokah in a photo is caused
by a convolution combination of the object photographed with the
shape-spread of the lens aperture. Deconvolution aspires to reverse the
convolution by applying the inverse operation with assumed parameters. The
above plug-ins allow one to play around with those assumed parameters until
the image looks better.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokah>
Extra-credit reading with high falutin' mathematics:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconvolution>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convolution>
- George Machen
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Re: Suggestions for Photoshopping Fur
Posted by: "Howard Smith"
Mon Sep 10, 2007 8:55 am (PST)
Louis,
Try this. Choose a channel that shows good fur detail.
Paste a copy of it above the background layer. Change blending mode to Soft
Light. Create a Curves Adjustment Layer above the channel copy. Click
Ctrl-G to group it with the channel copy. Adjust the master curve to get
the best detailing in the fur. Now make the background layer active and use
Unsharp Mask with Amount 50, Radius 50, Threshold 0. Immediately use
Edit/Fade Unsharp Mask to get the best sharpening. Go back to the channel
copy and adjust its opacity. If you get any unwanted color shifts, use
Curves or Hue/Saturation to correct the background layer..
If the background is unfavorably affected by all this,
a simple channel mask, enhanced with Curves, should take care of the
problem. Depending on the image you might want to blur the mask to avoid
the cut-out look.
I'm no wildlife photographer, but this procedure worked
well with a photo of a fawn lying in a bed of ferns, with a young
cottontail in a flowerbed, and with two polar bears that appeared as
yellowish, flat, and almost formless creatures in the photo. A couple of
minutes work transformed them back into dirty white polar bears with good
fur and muscle detail.
Howard Smith
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Re: Suggestions for Photoshopping Fur
Posted by: "Jim Donovan"
Mon Sep 10, 2007 9:28 am (PST)
Hi Lou, Try this method,I find it dose work well with
some images that have very fine detail like fur.Make a dupe layer,under
filters select other,the High Pass. You will get a grayed out image that
has hi-lites where you will be sharpening and one radius control to mess
with.Set the blending mode to overlay on the dupe layer,click it off and on
to see the effects of your sharpening.Experiment with several dupe layers
set at different radii, kind of double or triple or more hit sharpening.
Works well with Grass,Fur,fine fabric and so on. The key is to play around
with different settings on multiple layers with multiple radii. You could
write a Theseus on sharpening and not even scratch the surface,it's never
ending. Good luck! Jim Donovan
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Re: Suggestions for Photoshopping Fur
Posted by: "Louis Dina"
Mon Sep 10, 2007 3:35 pm (PST)
Thanks for all your suggestions so far regarding
handling fur in Photoshop.
Perhaps it makes more sense to post an image, so I will
try to do that after sending this post. First, the conditions under which I
shoot these creates (for the local wildlife center) are far from ideal.
Usually low light, cramped quarters, desired to maintain minimal contract
and disruptions, etc. The image to be posted in the files section of this
site (beaver.jpg at jpg setting of 10 so I don't have to upload a monster
TIFF) is an example of a shot taken, out of necessity, with an on-camera
flash pointed straight up and bounced off a white cardboard so it is a
little less harsh. The beaver has naturally oily fur, which tends to
reflect light and create lots of highlights. I set white balance and
sliders conservatively in ACR and did zero sharpening, then set highlights,
shadows and color balance in Photoshop (again, no sharpening). Assuming
this is the final color balance and tonal range (which is wouldn't be, but
is for this example), how can I sharpen it without making the fur look less
soft. I would actually prefer it had a softer feel to offset the harsher
lighting.
So far, I have had the best success leaving most of the
fur totally unsharpened, then doing local sharpening of some whiskers,
noses, eyes, and perhaps some fur highlights through a layer mask with a
soft brush. Sharpening overall increases the contrast range, brightens the
shine of individual hairs, and makes the fur look crisp, and course,
instead of soft.
I run into this all the time, since I in cramped,
poorly lit areas, am photographing animals that don't hold still, don't
have the ability to set up lights, and usually don't have a white surface I
can use to bounce flash from.
I'll try to post the image under the heading,
Beaver".
Thanks again,
Lou Dina
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Re: Suggestions for Photoshopping Fur
Posted by: "Howard Smith"
Mon Sep 10, 2007 6:56 pm (PST)
Say, Jim, that's a good one! I tried substituting your
High Pass layer for the channel copy mentioned in my earlier reply to Louis
Dina. By first changing the duplicate layer's blending mode to Overlay, you
can see the results of moving the High Pass slider so you'll know when
you've got the best setting. I kept everything else that I had already
described. Works great on my polar bears. Haven't tried it on anything
else, but it should work well.
One never knows when someone else's comment,
suggestion, or technique will lead to a whole new avenue of things to
explore. Now, that's what really makes this Forum worthwhile.
Howard Smith
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Re: Suggestions for Photoshopping Fur
Posted by: "Stephen Marsh"
Mon Sep 10, 2007 10:16 pm (PST)
Lou, I have mentioned this free plug more than once,
but it may be worth exploring for your fur:
http://www.reindeergraphics.com
Click on the free plugs menu, then Adpative Equalize.
"Adaptive Equalization. A free component of Fovea
Pro and The Image Processing Tool Kit.
Our Adaptive Equalization plugin implements a technique
for increasing the local contrast of images by reducing overall dynamic
range. It is particularly useful for making small surface marks visible, or
revealing detail in shadow areas, while preserving color
information."
Sincerely,
Stephen Marsh.
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Re: Suggestions for Photoshopping Fur
Posted by: "Howard Smith"
Mon Sep 10, 2007 10:18 pm (PST)
Lou,
Your beaver image looked good to me without
corrections, but I've sent along a mildly sharpened version offline to see
if that's what you had in mind.
In addition to the layers included with the image, I
did a very mild Unsharp Mask sharpening of the background layer (50%
Amount, 50% Radius, 0% Threshold; Edit/Fade Unsharp Mask to reduce the
effect). I failed to note that the channel copy layer was inverted and
blurrled, accompanied by a Highlight Layer Mask to limit contrast
improvement to detail in the highlights. If it's what you want, feel free
to post it. Otherwise don't give it another thought. It was fun working on
it whether it proves useful or not. It's a pity we don't see more images
like the few that have been posted this year.
Which brings up a question. When a Forum member posts
an image with a question about what might be done with it, should we
request formal approval before posting a different version, or is it just
considered acceptable to go ahead and post our own interpretation?
Howard Smith
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Re: Suggestions for Photoshopping Fur
Posted by: "Louis Dina"
Tue Sep 11, 2007 3:15 am (PST)
Hi Stephen.
I downloaded the Adaptive Equilize plugin and played
with it on my images. It will take getting more familiar with the filter
before I get the results I want with it, but it is incredibly useful for
pulling out hidden detail. Didn't seem to be the ticket for this image (at
least with my limited experimentation).
More importantly, Reindeer Graphics had a "Find
Edges" plugin that is quite slick. That has actually solved my
problem. After listening to the many helpful suggestions to my request, and
spending a lot more time playing with my Beaver images, I concluded that
the problem is "hot spots" and extended highlights caused by the
oil in the fur and exaggerated by flash (used out of necessity). Of course,
sharpening only made the matter worse, which is why I avoided sharpening
the fur in favor of localized sharpening around eyes, nose, etc. Using the
find edges filter allowed me to easily select only the brightest
highlights, then add a "paint layer" to tone them down with a
color sampled from slightly darker fur. Being able to tone down the
brightest, most offensive highlights retained the softness of the fur and
maintained the overall look and tonal range. Then I could apply gentle
sharpening on the toned down image very successfully. Now it looks soft but
with better detail, without losing the essence of what makes soft
fur......well, soft fur. Too much detail/contrast seems to be the enemy
here, especially bright highlights.
I had tried a similar approach, using the method Bruce
Fraser suggests for finding and sharpening edges in his Sharpening book. He
uses Calculations to create a mask channel using the Red and Green channels
and Pin light. Then he applies curves to the new channel, invests it and
applies a small gaussian blur and 2nd set of second set of curves to create
a final high contrast edge mask. I was able to do this successfully too,
but it takes a lot more work and getting all the mask settings properly
set. The Reindeer "Find Edges" plugin does this fast and easy,
and has a few different settings to help you fine tune it. So, Stephen, you
gave me a very workable solution by referring me to Reindeer. Thanks.
Howard, thanks for the image you sent me. It looks
good. It took me awhile to realize that it was the extended highlights in
the image that were really causing me the troubles. I tried separate
sharpening layers set to lighten and darken, which helped some, but didn't
address the initial problem (at least from my perspective), which was too
many oily hairs reflecting bright highlights.
I'll post and "after" Beaver shot so people
can see what I was after. It's sometimes hard to communicate what you are
looking for. This might not be what others would do with this image, but it
was what I was looking for.
Thanks again, folks.
Lou Dina
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Re: Suggestions for Photoshopping Fur
Posted by: "John Bongiovanni"
Tue Sep 11, 2007 7:08 am (PST)
"Howard Smith"wrote:
Say, Jim, that's a good one! I tried substituting your
High Pass layer for
the channel copy mentioned in my earlier reply to Louis
Dina. By first
changing the duplicate layer's blending mode to
Overlay, you can see the
results of moving the High Pass slider so you'll know
when you've
got the best setting. I kept everything else that I had
already described.
Could you clarify this, Howard? Are you just using the
High Pass filter as described above, or are you also doing sharpening? If
the latter, on which layer? Thanks.
John Bongiovanni
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Re: Suggestions for Photoshopping Fur
Posted by: "Louis Dina"
Tue Sep 11, 2007 11:50 am (PST)
Jim,
This sounds like what Lee Varis calls "octave
sharpening" in his Skin book. He creates four duplicate layers and
puts them into a group, sets each to luminosity, then sharpenes each layer
with a different radius and layer opacity (he uses Unsharp Mask instead of
High Pass). On the bottom luminosity layer he uses Unsharp settings of
500/0.5/0 and 100% opacity. The next layer up he uses a radius of 1.0 and
opacity of 50%, then 2 radius/25% opacity and 4 radius/13% opacity on the
top layer. You can then adjust the opacity of the entire group and/or any
individual layers in the group.
I already had this programmed as an action so I ran it
on the fur (after toning down the shiny fur highlights per a previous post)
and it had a very nice effect. If I understand your post correctly, they
are fairly similar.
Thanks for the good suggestion. That will be a part of
my "fur" arsenal in the future. The key to what I want is toning
down the highlight shine first, but this was a helpful post. I hadn't
thought of using this type of sharpening on fur.
Regards,
Lou Dina
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Re: Suggestions for Photoshopping Fur
Posted by: Howard Smith
Tue Sep 11, 2007 4:40 pm (PST)
This is the procedure on which I finally settled. Use
Ctrl-J to duplicate the background layer. Change the duplicate's blending
mode to Overlay. Choose Filter/Other/High Pass and adjust the High Pass
Radius while watching the effect on the image. Create a Curves Adjustment
Layer above the High Pass filter layer. Click Ctrl-G to group it with the
High Pass layer so it will affect only that layer. Use Normal blending
mode, though you can experiment with Overlay mode and see what happens. Use
the master curve to adjust the tones in the High Pass filter layer. Click
on the background layer, then choose Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp Mask. Use an
Amount of 50% and a Radius of 50%. Threshold 0%. The effect is pretty
strong, of course, but you can tone it down with Edit/Fade Unsharp Mask.
Use Apply Image to paste a copy of the Green channel into a new, blank
layer at the top of the layers stack. Invert it with Ctrl-I. Create a Layer
Mask for that layer with Select/Color Range/Highlights. Use
Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur to get the maximum detail in the pale highlights.
Lou used what appears to be a very promising plug-in recommended by Stephen
Marsh. For lack of time I just toned down the white guard hairs by painting
on yet another new, blank layer in Darken mode, using a medium brown color
selected from the beaver's fur. Lou Dina used a little more time for more
precise work with localized sharpening, etc., as he describes in his post.
My approach enhanced the background as well, but Lou prefers a more muted
background which is probably best if you want to concentrate on the beaver
itself. Almost forgot to mention that you can also try using Unsharp Mask
on the High Pass filter layer. You can see that there must be dozens or
even hundreds of combinations of blending modes and opacities with which to
experiment. Every once in awhile one of these strange combinations produces
a real winner.
My approach is just a starting point. You can adjust
the opacities of the various layers, use the referenced plug-in, use a
layer mask to paint in localized sharpening from an underlying globally
sharpened layer, and any number of other things. Likely no two of us will
use the same approach, but I learned quite a lot from Lou Dina's
explanation. It was very educational just to see how a wildlife
photographer looks at an image. As I have said many a time, each person's
ideas can serve as stepping stones toward developing still more techniques
for special purposes. We need more of these ideas, but we can often learn
some valuable things from heated controversies as well. You never know
where the next great idea is coming from.
If my explanation isn't quite clear, please don't
hesitate to contact me here or offline.
Howard Smith
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Re: Suggestions for Photoshopping Fur
Posted by: "Jim Donovan"
Tue Sep 11, 2007 4:41 pm (PST)
This sounds like what Lee Varis calls "octave
sharpening" in his Skin
book. He creates four duplicate layers and puts them
into a group,
sets each to luminosity, then sharpenes each layer with
a different
radius and layer opacity (he uses Unsharp Mask instead
of High
Pass). On the bottom luminosity layer he uses Unsharp
settings of
500/0.5/0 and 100% opacity. The next layer up he uses a
radius of
1.0 and opacity of 50%, then 2 radius/25% opacity and 4
radius/13%
opacity on the top layer. You can then adjust the
opacity of the
entire group and/or any individual layers in the group.
You Betcha Lou!!! Works like a charm eh. Yes it is
similar to Lee's octave sharpening. Keep playing with it you will continue
discover better ways to sharpen. It is never ending and by far the most
complex pre-press step there is. Glad I could help! Jim Donovan
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FocusMagic and FocusFixer - was "Suggestions for
Photoshopping Fur"
Posted by: "Louis Dina"
Thu Sep 13, 2007 1:40 pm (PST)
A little feedback on FocusMagic and FocusFixer. I
downloaded both on
a trial basis and played around with a number of
different images to
test them out vs. USM. I tried them on high, medium and
low
frequency detail images.
First thing I noticed is that the preview window is
small in both
plugins, which makes it hard to determine if you have
the best
setting or not. The windows cannot be enlarged.
FocusFixer (FF) has a radius slider, and a threshold
slider to help
alleviate sharpening noise. No Amount adjustment, which
I found
wanting. FocusMagic (FM) has a radius and Amount
slider, but no
Threshold, though it does have a drop down box to allow
the user to
select a few different presets for dealing with noise
amplification.
FM also has an "auto-detect" feature that
sets the radius to what it
thinks is optimum. FM also seems to apply more default
sharpening
than FF, which I liked since I always sharpen on a
duplicate layer so
I can adjust opacity. Both products do a decent job,
and generally
have reduced halos (especially light halos) compared to
USM used in
standard mode. Both are SLOW, probably 30-60 seconds or
longer,depending on the settings and the image.
Having said that, I find I generally prefer USM. With
USM, I can
sharpen only the Red or Green channel, or both, or all
three. I can
also create separate lighten and darken layers and
reduce the lighten
layer opacity to reduce light halos. Or I can use blend
if sliders
to control where sharpening is applied, or use an edge
mask, etc.
One of the biggest advantages of USM (other than being
free with PS)
is that you get to see a preview of your entire image
while you are
setting Amount, Radius and Threshold, which I find
really helps to
get the best possible setting. It is also very fast
compared to the
two plugins mentioned above. I found that I was able to
get as good
or better sharpening with USM than with the plugins on
most images,
and the results seemed more natural, especially on low
frequency
images (bowls of fruit, pottery, etc). USM does tend to
have more
noticeable halos if it is applied carelessly, but I
found the many
methods above handle these concerns effectively. While
I am waiting
for the plugins to chug along, I can be adjusting USM
to get exactly
what I want. So, unless they make some improvements, I
don't
personally see enough reason to buy these plugins.
There are
probably some images where these products may outdo
USM, but I only
worked on a dozen images or so, and didn't see any
marked improvement.
Just thought I'd pass along my experiences. I don't
mean to dissuade
anyone from trying these products out, since they do a
creditable
job, just not enough to make me part with the money.
Lou Dina