Developing the Image - Stone Town Man

Developing an image is always a decision-making process.  Making one decision often sets you up for the next decision, and so on.  Making a wrong decision will often set you off on the wrong track, defined by a general dissatisfaction with the image at the end of the process.  Fortunately, the process is in some ways easier than in the wet darkroom - adjustments (and their results) are seen immediately, and it’s so much easier and less costly to step backwards if you think you’re going down the wrong track.  On the other hand, you have so many tools at your finger tips, and often so many different ways to get the same (or similar) results, that it’s hard to decide which of the dozens of tools you have before you to use.  People used to ask me what the most important tool in the darkroom was and I would tell them good decision making.  It’s like that for so many things in life.  That’s why it’s so important to exercise your skills and to keep learning, because you learn by doing it and, at least early on, a lot from your mistakes.  

I’ve mentioned before that I make my images using a raw format instead of jpg (j-peg) format.  Raw images give me a lot of leeway in working with an image because it records so much more data than a jpg, but it does have drawbacks, particularly straight out of camera.  Take this image for instance.  This is the straight out of camera “raw” image.   I knew what I felt when I took the image, but I also knew my camera was not “seeing” the scene the way I was, and I had to account for that if I wanted to record something I could work with.

It is, so to speak, a near perfect raw image (I actually should have shot it at 1/3 less of a stop because part of the back area sky is blown out (read: has no data in it, so it’s pure white), but then the doorway might have gone into total darkness). This is where raw shines because I have recorded as much data as I possibly could have with my camera/sensor (my old x100; my newer xPro2 has even more dynamic range).  A jpg of the above would have both blown out the sky and pushed the doorway into total black.  

Anyway, the above image is my starting point.

And for reference, this is where I end up.  

I’m going to walk you through the entire process of making this image.  In Capture One that’s easy because adjustments are generally made in “layers” and I have the ability to turn off each layer and walk through them one by one. Below you can see a screen clipping of several layers, some are checked and some are not.  I also tend to identify each layer by identifying the tool used for the layer, and where that layer is being applied.  And sometimes I’ll include a summary of whether I’m brightening or darkening something.  The developing process, as you’ll see from the examples below, is also benefitted by being able to turn on and off a “mask” of what the layer is working on.

One starts with what is called the “Background” layer, which is the layer that first alters the image.  You’re allowed to do only basic, overall adjustments here so any changes take effect across the entire image.  Here’s where I set the basic exposure, contrast and structure adjustments to bring the image to a better starting point in cases like this one.  Here, I was limited in what I could do because so much of the dynamic range was already being used (from black to white), but if the entire image had been a bit dark, I could have lightened it, or vice versa. 

From that starting point, I begin thinking about what areas of the image need work.  Generally, that would have been my first mistake.  The first thing that I should have done was think of what I wanted the final image to look like, then start with the  specific improvements.  But I’ve worked on this image a bit before, so I thought I knew where I wanted to go with it and skipped that step.

With my first layer I knew I needed to darken the end of the alley a bit so it didn’t immediately grab the eye and prevent you from looking down it.  The eye tends to gravitate towards bright spots in images.  Then again, I didn’t want it to be too dark, because it’s still the final destination for the eye, but it couldn’t look as bright as it did to start out with.

I used a radial tool (it creates an ellipse/circle that you can adjust that feathers its effects) to lighten down just the brighter and white tones, leaving the mid and lower tones as they originally were.  I also added clarity and structure (I’ll discuss those later), because I want the eye to go down there visually, just not immediately.

Here’s what that correction did to the image.

Next I was concerned about the darker area closer to me, so I did a large radial that covered the man, the door, and the darker part of the wall, trying to create a more even light on the wall. 

Again, the effect is readily noticeable with the man becoming much more prominent than before and a largely even exposure down the entire alley progressing from slightly darker to lighter.

For the next level I used a brush and manipulated both clarity and structure.  They’re both “micro-contrast” tools that operate a bit differently, with clarity working on contrast on surfaces, and structure with the contrast on adjacent different tonal values (i.e., edges).  They visually sharpen (without actually “sharpening”, which is a whole different thing I won’t get into) whatever they get applied to and help attract the eye.  As you can see below, I not only brushed the man at the door (who I really want you to first look at), but I’ve also sharpened part of the wall he’s looking down, the ground and the opposite wall, all leading towards the end of the alley.  Note I didn’t brush areas to the left of the man (that might lead your eye off the image) or above the rough wall on the left (which might lift your eyes up so you don’t go towards the end of the alley). 

Here, the changes are not so noticeable.  But if you look carefully, you’ll realize that some areas grab your eye, but other areas don’t.  That’s what I’m hoping for.

After making that adjustment, I decided that the man still did not grab the eye enough, so I did a radial layer on him and the door frame surrounding him.  Here I made additional adjustments to bright areas as well as adding a bit more clarity and structure to really bring him out.

In short, he now has more of a “presence” in the image than he did previously. 

By this point I thought that I had the basics down and that my main subject, the man, was “right.”  Now it was time to step back and look at the details.  I decided that the door above and to the left of the man was a bit dark for the rest of the scene so I brushed some areas with the intention of lighting up the darker areas.  I also decided that adding a bit of structure to the door wouldn’t hurt (so long as I avoided that rough wall on the bottom of the image edge) and might help “frame” the man.  

The key to so much of this is to have a light hand in the changes one makes.  My goal is to always try and make an image seem realistic - if you can tell I’ve greatly manipulated things in an image, to me that’s a failure.  To me, the darkness on the left and right edges read as a general darkening of the alley, something that is entirely plausible in Stone town.

My next step was to return to the “destination” with a tilted radial.   

Here are some things that psychologists say about photographs.  If there is a photograph of a face (human or animal), the viewer subconsciously will look at that first.  If there is a human in a photograph (imagine the innumerable Instagram images of the back of a solitary person in the landscape, arms spread), the eye goes there first.  And, if a person is looking at something (or in a particular direction), after the eye goes to the person, it subconsciously goes to where the person is looking.  That’s why I needed to make the end of the alley more visually interesting than it was.

I darkened the exposure as well as darkened the blacks just a bit (which brought out the shadows in the wall),  increased the color saturation of the wall (which brought out the yellow color, and, you guessed it, added a bit more clarity and structure (which really helped the door).

That rear upper wall still didn’t feel right, so I added a brush to it to try and darken it a bit.

And I called it quits for the day.  The reality is, you should take a break every 10 or so minutes as you’re developing an image on a monitor because your eyes “adjust” in certain ways that you don’t notice.  The end result is you make bad decisions that lead you to ask later on, “Why in the hell did I do THAT!”  Plus I’ve learned that it’s good to work on an image, set it aside for a few days and come back to it.  Then it’s a lot easier to see what’s right, what’s wrong, and what still needs to be done.   Hopefully.

That’s what I did.  I set it aside where it was in the above image, and came back about a week later.

When I returned to the image it was immediately obvious that I’d gotten the back wall wrong s.  Did I forget to mention that the longer you work at something, the more tired you get mentally as well, and the easier it is to make bad decisions?  I used to tell myself in the wet darkroom days that after 4 hours in the darkroom, I really need to ask myself if I’m too tired (mentally and physically) to make good decisions.  The same holds true with working on images on the monitor - I rarely work on them after a long day’s work.

How do I know now that I thought my last edits were wrong from the first session?  Easy, the layer is titled “Brush correct Rear Rt Triangle.” 

To me the upper wall did not look natural, nor did it look like the same wall both above and below the leaning post.  So the “correction” was going to be a two-step process.  First above the pole . . .

and then in the white areas below the pole. 

The nice thing about all of the tools is that you can vary the percentage of effect of each tool for the layer, and with the brush tool you can manipulate the “flow” as well and slowly build up the effect stroke by stroke.

Ultimately, this is what I wound up with, both for the rear wall and the entire image.  

11- Brush small triangle lower darken whites- Zanzibar Man - Raw2012061020120610_Zanzibar_0011.jpg

At some point you have to call it quits. Again, that’s where experience and practice comes in.  When you work on an image, you can get to the point where you realize your changes don’t make the image better.  They always made it different, but not always better.  That’s why it’s good to have an idea of what you want to have at the end of the process, because that becomes the determining factor whether you’re done or whether that additional edit makes the image better.  

This was it.

Or was it?  One of the reasons I do these blog posts is because I get a lot out of them.  They force me to think and to articulate my thoughts.  Which gets me thinking some more, not just on what I’m focused on, but on other matters as well.  All of that keeps me mentally engaged, helps me to keep pushing myself and hopefully helps improve my work.  In short, blogging becomes a learning process that promotes creativity.  

Well, you’re not going to believe the follow-up post this one triggered . . . .