Ever Forward

I am experimenting a little more with my Nikon D70s, trying to learn a little more about photography.  I used a polarizing filter for the first time and even decided on a whim to change the photo format to RAW.  The RAW photos are absolutely brilliant, but I encountered a little trouble converting them to JPEG or other format.  Not knowing much at all about digital photo processing, I was initially disappointed with my first conversion efforts, and completely lost as to where to start.  If I don’t know anything, what could I do to improve the results?

I was out playing with the camera this past Saturday at Freedom Park, which is part of the Little Sugar Creek Greenway here in Charlotte.  It was a beautiful day with a clear blue sky.  A little breezy, but otherwise a great day.  Not all of the trees have started turning colors yet, so many are still green.  Even so, there are a few that are already turning deep red and orange.  Even though I really wanted to find another location, I did not want to stray too far from home.  I was wanting to experiment a bit, so what better way to do that than using familiar subjects?  I used the polarizing filter on my 18-70mm lens (my standard), and then also used my 70-300mm telephoto lens, minus any filters at all.  Until now, I really have not done much more than basic point-n-shoot photography, frequently not really putting much thought into my photos.  Yet, I manage to turn out some pretty good ones, so I figure I need to start learning and experimenting more.

I had the notion that the real advantage of RAW lies in having better opportunity to correct photos after they are taken, than with other formats.  Having read Carla Schroder’s tutorial on Linux.com, I now realize that…  “Working in RAW gives you much greater dynamic range for editing, and more scope to rescue photos with exposure, noise, sharpness, or white balance problems.”  When I got home from my shoot, I loaded the images into Digikam and was immediately (and probably easily) impressed with the brilliance of the colors, especially of the holly berries and a duck I had shot in RAW format.  But when  I tried to save these RAW images as JPEG or PNG files, the brilliant red berries turned a dull, dead brownish-red.  I had not yet read the above tutorial, and was unpleasantly surprised by the experience.  I initially deleted the ugly result, but went back and recreated it so I could show you what it looked like:

Initial result of RAW import, using mostly default settings

Not exactly the brilliant red that I saw in the RAW file in Digikam’s photo album.  I started reading the Digikam documentation, and quickly found myself armpit deep in technical jargon that, so far, is still mostly over my head.  So then I begged and pleaded for help on Facebook, and Carla pointed me in the direction of her tutorial.  After reading that, I made a second effort.  I did not spend a lot of time on it, but made some changes based on the tutorial and the results turned out much better.  The new version still does not quite capture the brilliant red of the berries like the RAW file, and I can probably make some further adjustments to improve the photo.  But it is an improvement over my initial flop.  And here I present Exhibit “B” for your critical review:

The 'new and improved' JPEG after following a basic tutorial

I am certain the photo can still be improved even more.  But this being a first foray into RAW image processing, at least it’s a start.  What’s more, it occurs to me that the brilliance I see in the RAW image could be exaggerated, and might need to be corrected to be a little darker.  On this one, I adjusted the exposure (ev) under post-processing, changed the “Demosaicing” quality from bi-linear to AHD, and chose the camera option under “White Balance”.  I also played a little bit with the “Corrections” dialog section, enabling the Enable Chromatic Aberration Correction option, even though I don’t know the red and blue correction values for my lenses.  I probably made a bad choice in one of these options, and there may have been other things I should have done, or at least could do, to improve the image.  But again, it’s a start.

I have purchased and am reading through the Digital Photography Bible by Dan Simon.  And While Mr. Simon probably knows little or nothing about Digikam, I’m sure much of his information about composing photos and digital image processing will still go a long way toward helping me improve my photography skills.  Hopefully, I can manage to turn out a few more interesting photos in the future.  I see lots of camera play in my future.

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PS – A little further tinkering produces this result, even closer to the RAW image color (using the VCD+AHD combo option under Demosaicing, as well as some tweaking of the post-processing options):

Result of Round #3 in Digikam's RAW import tool