Pale washed out photos re digiscoped pics. (1 Viewer)

[christineredgate]

Just lately all my digiscope pics seem very wishy washy,perhaps over exposed could be the term to use.I may have inadvertently altered the settings,although I have checked them.I enclose a pic which has not been altered in any way,only re sized.Has anyone any idea where I am going wrong.They used to be quite sharp in colour,but just lately not very good at all.

Thanks,

 

[Andy Bright]

Hi Christine, the photo doesn't look too bad to me. I wonder if the recent high temperatures have suddenly presented you with far more heat haze than you've had to deal with before. There are far more pollutants in the air in the summer months and digiscoping is particularly susceptible to these with the huge magnifications involved ..all of which adds up to less contrast and muted colours.
regards,
Andy

 

[christineredgate]

Thanks,Andy,yes perhaps that could be the problem.These shots were taken in the morning and the sun was shining across the lagoon onto the nesting bank,and I must admit most of my digiscoping is done when the sun is shining and usually across stretches of water.But if you think they are average,Andy,then okay.It could be I am comparing them with some of the SLR ones taken lately,where the colours are very sharp,but the Canon will not produce the close up shots that digiscoping does.I will have to try with a digiscope image which is closer and see if that is as clear as they used to be.Just that for a couple of months they haven't been quite as clear and sharp as they used to be.

 

[Ruby]

Hi Christine,

I too have had problems with this washed-out look...... In my own case, it seems to happen on a particular day and photos from the next batch may (or sometimes not!!) be OK.

I had come to the conclusion that it was either atmospherics - even though not necessarily descernible at the time, or maybe some difference to the way I was mounting the camera on the scope.

It is frustrating though, to get home and find that your photos that you have worked hard for are just lacking any 'oomph'

On a slightly different subject... I notice that the particular shot that you have attached is very high contrast. I have failed dismally almost every time I have tried to get pics of white and dark images - either the black is hopelessly under-exposed or the white is 'blown'. Lost count of the number of pictures of Avocets that have ended up in the bin!!

I know that there was a thread just recently about taking multiple exposures and then merging them, but it all went a bit over my head!!

I do imagine that your digi-scoped pics must struggle to compare with your SLR ones...


Rgds.... Ruby

 

[christineredgate]

Thanks,Ruby,for your reply.Yes,one sees one has a clear image on the camera lcd screen ,then when one views them ,it is quite a let down.But I am still able to take better digiscope pics ,than from the sLR,for the images I am trying to take.I took some of the Heron fishing in the bay,on Monday evening.I had quite large clear images of the Heron,but when I took the same bird with the slr,even with the extension,the bird was visible ,but no comparison to the digiscope pics.But on the same evening I took some pics of Linnets perching on the gorse bushes,just sitting on my bike hand holding the camera,and although they were not the "loud ,in your face close ups"the little Linnet was very clear,showing all his colours.So obviously each camera set up has its own special use.But as both yourself and Andy have mentioned ,yes could be due to atmospherics.

 

[scampo]

Just lately all my digiscope pics seem very wishy washy,perhaps over exposed could be the term to use.I may have inadvertently altered the settings,although I have checked them.I enclose a pic which has not been altered in any way,only re sized.Has anyone any idea where I am going wrong.They used to be quite sharp in colour,but just lately not very good at all.

Thanks,

Well - a tweak with that software I recommended will help: but the blacks are quite solid and the whites are bright. The lighting itself looks to be the main problem here - very flat. Also there is some camera shake or something causing loss of sharpness.

 

[christineredgate]

Steve,yes it was very windy,and quite cool although the sun was shining across the water to the nesting site.
I need help to install the software as it is a photoshop plug in.I did drop hints to my pc chappie when he was sorting out the card reader,but he just looked and made no offers.He was not very pleased as the files he was looking for re the USB ports to find the drivers were missing and he found that they were "hidden",so obviously I had inadvertently pressed a wrong button somewhere!!

 

[Jay Turberville]

I agree that the black and white of the birds has resulted in lost highlights and shadows. I also agree that this looks like an atmospheric haze issue.

If you use Photoshop or any program that has an Unsharp Mask feature similar to Photoshop's, there is a way to cut through the haze a bit. The basic scheme is to use a small amount of Unsharp Mask (20% maybe) but a rather large radius. This has the effect of filtering out low spatial frequencies - that is - components that are found over large areas. Haze falls into that category.

Doing this ruins the birds though, so I masked the Unsharp Masked image so that the original birds are seen through it. This Unsharp Mask puts a lot of the pop back into the image, but the colors are still a bit muted. So I then boosted the green saturation a bit - using the color picker to get a range of greens that matched the image. I did a little bit of this to the reds to enhance the dried plants a bit also.

The final step is an opposite type of unsharp mask. I used a very small radius - perhaps .4% but a LOT of sharpening - a few hundred percent

It is easy to overdo this type of processing. The maxim that, "if a little bit is good, then too much should be just right" often comes into play.
So I keep a layer with the original image in the .PSD file and will blend it with the final processed image to mediate any such overzealous processing. I didn't do any such blending this time, but perhaps I should have.

http://www.jayandwanda.com/digiscope/hazefix/Mon 14th June 083mod.jpg

 

[scampo]

That certainly did the trick, Jay. Amazing what post-processing (or perhaps, 'correct' processing) with PS can do.

 

[jebir]

Well - a tweak with that software I recommended will help:..

Steve,

What software are you talking about? I guess you could provide a link to another thread that I am unaware of.

Cheers, Jens.

 

[scampo]

Two time saving pieces of software are Colorwasher and FocalBlade.

http://thepluginsite.com/products/photowiz/focalblade/index.htm

http://thepluginsite.com/products/photowiz/colorwasher/

Well worth buying!

 

[christineredgate]

Thanks,Jay,I have printed off your info,and will have a try.Looks a bit complicated though!!.Steve,I have been to look at your sites,yes the Colour Wash prog does look very interesting.

 

[Jay Turberville]

Thanks,Jay,I have printed off your info,and will have a try.Looks a bit complicated though!!.Steve,I have been to look at your sites,yes the Colour Wash prog does look very interesting.

I think it sounds more complicated than it is. Try telling someone in words how to tie their shoelaces and it becomes apparent that some things just sound more complicated than they are.

The plugins that Steve mentions have demo versions, so it might be worth downloading them and giving them a whirl.

I've spend many hours in darkrooms and the notion that every image ought to be customized prior to printing or display is a given to me. So some of this stuff seems like no work at all. I think it took me about 2-3 minutes to make the mods to your picture. Most of that time was spend in painting the mask so that what tonal range the birds had was preserved.

 

[slipe]

You don’t need plug-ins or special programs with Photoshop for cleaning up foggy pictures. You have to keep in mind that defogging with a small amount and large radius isn’t a sharpening step and you also sharpen the image. This was a quick and dirty in Photoshop.

 

[christineredgate]

Thanks,Slipe and Jay.slipe whatdo you mean by a "quick and dirty",please?.Did you use a de-fog prog.?

 

[Jay Turberville]

Thanks,Slipe and Jay.slipe whatdo you mean by a "quick and dirty",please?.Did you use a de-fog prog.?

He means he didn't spend a lot of time fiddling with the settings to get optimal results. In the example of using Unsharp Mask that I posted earlier, I used layers in order to preserve shadow detail. Slipe didn't bother with that and is just showing how using the Unsharp Mask technique appears to lift the fog from the picture. He would, no doubt, spend more time if he wanted to do more than demonstrate the utility of the technique.

 

[christineredgate]

Thanks,Jay.

 

[Mike D]

Hi Christine, Looking at your original pic my first thought was that you have a dirty or fogged lens.
Have you checked you don't have a dirty fingerprint on the lens or condensation inside the lens construction? Sorry if you think I am teaching grandma to suck eggs, but it is a possibility.

 

[christineredgate]

No,Mike,I don't think so,I think it was the sun haze shining across the water.