Strong Sunlight, and a panorama

[Mike_Murphy_1948 (Michael Murphy)]

Saturday afternoon we visited the Savoy residence at Govone, on the East bank of the Tanaro, between Alba and Asti. Here is the panorama I took looking SE from the castle terrace.

Each frame was run through PL8, for optical correction only. The panorama is stitched in Affinity Photo 2, and the resulting (enormous) TIFF corrected very slightly to reduce the exposure time half a stop.

To see whether I understand @Joanna’s comments on the Collioure thread, I took another shot from the visit:

This is the SOOC (well, with optical correction) , and it is obvious that the shadow areas are too dark to give any detail at all.
So I started “frobbing” the shadows and blacks, without touching the exposure.

Initially (“Shadow areas too dark? Boost shadows!”) I upped the shadows by 16 and the blacks by 8.
![D6700685-S16-B8|690x460](upload://5

kgLuRZmaltRw5CRAj0fkbaXfc7.jpeg)
There is more detail, and the foreground is dark, but there isn’t enough detail in the really dark areas. So next attempt (Shadow +16, Black +24)

Now we are seeing more detail. Try Black +32.

Hmm, the statue is beginning to look odd. Set the Black back to 24 and lighten the darker bits of foreground with a brushed local adjustment.

Here is the final .DOP file and the RAW capture.
D6700685.ARW (36.9 MB)
D6700685.ARW.dop (53.0 KB)
Please ignore the Portakabin and the safety netting. I couldn’t find a path that could exclude them from the frame! All other C&C welcome.

[Joanna (Joanna Carter)]

Hi Mike. I take it by “frobbing” you mean playing with the Selective Tonality sliders?

Well, here is my effort without any alteration to those sliders, but with adjustment to the Fine Contrast sliders, especially for the shadows…

But, first of all, I used the Spot Measure Smart Lighting tool to establish the black and white points - and not much else.

Here is the DOP, with my effort as the VC…

D6700685.ARW.dop (86,2 Ko)

This shows why FilmPack is so important and, really, should be incorporated into the Elite version as standard - just for the Fine Contrast sliders.

[Mike_Murphy_1948 (Michael Murphy)]

Thank you, Joanna! Yes, “frobbing” is playing with the tonal sliders in the “Selective Tone” tool. Google searching suggests that your reference to the “Spot Measure Smart Lighting tool” is to “DXO Smart Lighting”, but I don’t understand how this helps find the black and white points. If I check it on, and click on “Spot” it simply tells me it can’t find a face. Nor does drawing an area I want to represent the white seem to help. You’ll have to be patient with me; I’ve only been using DxO for about 10 years. And I only learn how to use a tool when it is the answer to a “how to” question. I had enough of reading manuals from page 1 to page 4095 when I was writing code… Wouldn’t buy a book in Blackwells unless the index contained a reference to the topic I wanted to learn about.

I am waiting for Black Friday to see whether the kitty will support buying FP. For the moment, perhaps you remember a poem about the naming of the parts. “Which in your case you have not got”?

[Joanna (Joanna Carter)]

@Mike_Murphy_1948

I don’t understand how this helps find the black and white points. If I check it on, and click on “Spot” it simply tells me it can’t find a face. Nor does drawing an area I want to represent the white seem to help

Here is the untouched image…

Here, I have highlighted the rectangles to make it clear where they are…

Using it at Light mode, it is subtle but increasing the mode level can soon lead to ugly HDR type effects.

@Mike_Murphy_1948

You’ll have to be patient with me; I’ve only been using DxO for about 10 years. And I only learn how to use a tool when it is the answer to a “how to” question

Do you know how long I have been using digital cameras before someone pointed out back button focusing? Revolutionised my photography

[Mike_Murphy_1948 (Michael Murphy)]

What - actually - is the point of back button focus? When the AF-point is correctly selected my Sony camera shows me whether it is focusing on my target. If the camera is not pre-focusing, how am I to know whether AF will select the correct target?

I realise the answer may depend on the AF characteristics of different brands. At least one of my past Sony bodies (the A77ii) had a kind of Word-Perfect button combination with which you could limit the AF-able range - this enabled one to override the Sony tendency to focus on the closest object within the AF-area. Never used it much because there was no room in my bag for a Wang keyboard.

And digging myself further into the hole, why use AF-S (where the AF stops re-focusing) after you tell the camera you have found focus? Yes, this is one way of ensuring the subject stays (nearly) in focus while you point the lens somewhere else; but because in the 21st century there is no need to go through the focus and recompose tango …
(/Rant)

[Mike_Murphy_1948 (Michael Murphy)]

@Joanna
Now I can see the “spot” boxes on the preview screen; as long as I have the DxO Smart Lighting tool active. Am I right in understanding that this will now have set the appropriate White and Black points on the Tone Curve tool? Do I need to turn this tool on before I do the spot selection?

[mwsilvers (Mark - New Jersey, USA)]

@Mike_Murphy_1948

Now I can see the “spot” boxes on the preview screen; as long as I have the DxO Smart Lighting tool active. Am I right in understanding that this will now have set the appropriate White and Black points on the Tone Curve tool? Do I need to turn this tool on before I do the spot selection?

No, there is no interaction between the Smart lighting tool and the Tone curve tool. They work independently from each other, at least on the Windows version. Try it for yourself.

Mark

[stuck (Canon, PL7 on Win 10 + GTX 1050ti)]

@Mike_Murphy_1948

Now I can see the “spot” boxes on the preview screen; as long as I have the DxO Smart Lighting tool active.

Yes, but having clicked on the ‘Tool’ and created the boxes, you can click again on the ‘Tool’ to hide the boxes. That makes it easier to do other edits (e.g. changing the Tone Curve) without the Smart Lighting boxes getting in the way. Toggling the ‘Tool’ like this doesn’t disable the Smart Lighting defined be the boxes., whereas deactivating the Smart Lighting palette will disable the Smart Lighting defined by the boxes.

[Mike_Murphy_1948 (Michael Murphy)]

Thanks @joanna, @mwsilvers, and @stuck! I think I finally get it. It makes me wonder what other killer features of PL I have been missing all these years.