How do you see it?

It's Idle time here. I gave myself a "vacation" from blogging last week for the Eid holiday. Not much has been going on except for some shots done in the family gathering - and they were not as vibrant as the years before. I, in fact, spent many days in the holiday sleeping for long hours (8 to 10 hours a day!). I guess I'm compensating for all the sleeping problems I've faced during Ramadhan. Meanwhile, I decided to do a little study on some aspect of tone-splitting technique. This study is not scientific in any way, but it is mainly observational to take some notes. I wonder though if there is a way to "scientify" this process after all.

Vergleichung

Since I've been working in Tone-splitting techniques for some time, I wanted to test some matters related to it. Yet, I'm not sure how to make a scientific and bold approach to such matter, since they are artistic in the first place. Thus, the sole reasoning in this experiment is done by heart and feelings initiated by eyes vision. The task here is to investigate the relation between luminance colors and their usage in tone-splitting process; how would they appear and feel when used as one of the tones in the process. But before going through rummaging, I will talk a bit about the process.

Concept
In the beginning, the general idea here is to use 2 colors: a specific chosen color from part of the image, and its complimentary color. Now, these two colors can be bright and dull sometimes, according to how we see it, but the main question was, how to specify this? What makes a color lustrous more than the other? If we have two complimentary colors, they are just opposites on color circle, and the difference between the two is barely in the Hue value, while Saturation and Brightness (or Lightness) have the same value. After searching around and with the help of the colors websites I have at hand, I've found out that the most adequate tool to compare these two is by checking their CIE-LAB values (LAB for short) - and more specifically, the "L" value (which stands for Luminance).

Portion from ColorHexa website showing the LAB values (in Red). The Luminance value which I've used for comparison between colors marked in blue.

After doing some experiments and comparing various colors, seems my guessing was right: The "L" value is indeed responsible for how "bright" the color is as we see it. So, what now?

Work
The work now was to choose a specific color. In the beginning, I was kind of in dilemma for what color should I choose in each image, as I didn't want to make the whole set is based on two complimentary colors alone - but it should be something of general concept. In the beginning, I tried to use the Average Blur command which makes an average of all the pixels in the image into one color. Sounded a good idea, but unfortunately, the colors resulting from this process were mostly dull and with low L-value, and their complimentary colors have the same characteristics. Thus, I had to do it in the usual manner as I usually do the tone splitting process for some of my images; by picking a lighted area in the image itself and analyze its color, and then pick the complimentary for that color. The two are used then to do the usual job of tone-splitting for the image.
I won't go on with the manual procedure of tone-splitting with the images, but to make things standard as much as possible, the random-picked images were turned into Black and White and using Maximum White preset (which can be found in the menu of the command in Photoshop). This preset sets all values for all tones to 100. Usually in my regular work in tone splitting I would play around with these values to pronounce specific details more than the others, but since I'm going to test several random images here, it is better to make something as a basic procedure.
Now according to these procedures and after picking a color and its complimentary color from the available colors in the image itself, we are in front of two cases, which I called "AB" and "BA" for easiness and affluence, where:

•  AB: The color of the higher luminance is assigned to the highlights, and the colors of the low luminance is assigned to the shadows.
•  BA: The opposite of the above; the low luminance color is assigned to the highlights of the image, while the color of high luminance is assigned to the shadows.

Thus, for each image picked here, we have two cases; one for AB and one for BA.

The Images
The images for the test are picked randomly, from various folders and years. Nothing specific was set to be looking for; simply random. The images are below and they are minimized. You can click any for a bit larger view. The total is 12 images.

Observation
After checking for myself with these twelve images (which is not enough in fact), I've made a simple statistical count:
AB preferred:  58.3%
BA preferred: 16.6%
Undecided: 25%

I can't surely say that having a luminance color to be taking the place of highlights is a sure thing, but I would say that with the abundance of highlights in some image, and placing a luminous color when splitting the tones in place of the highlights, that would make pretty much a bright image to the extent that, sometimes, it eclipses the complimentary color given for the shadows - thus, probably in such instances of abundant highlight, the AB type is not advisable. On the other hand, the colors chosen would play a great role, but in this instance it is all the role of taste. Those 25% of the undecided, might be so for compositional factors I presume, or ought to a balance in the overall highlights and shadows in the image, making the eye sight torn in between elements of the image without really residing on a specific element. This is all I could think of in the time being, but sure it doesn't end here. I'm wondering what would the next step be? More experimenting? Notice that all of this experiment, from A to Z, is based on color and complimentary color relation - there are other schemes to be investigated as well. Anyway, for the time being maybe I can put a guide line for myself in the matter of tone-splitting which might go like:

In tone-splitting process, the color of the highest luminance, or "L" value in LAB system, is to be assigned to the highlights, and its complimentary would be assigned to the shadows, providing that highlights do not overwhelm shadows in the image. And that is a starting point for creating and contrasty and easy-to-notice image.

And more testing should be coming on the way.

Finale

I was supposed to have some rest in this month, regarding my workplace which made it easy with the fingerprint attendance process. However, on Wednesday, I've received some letter asking that I should be doing the fingerprint attendance again after being told that I do have a exclusion permit till the end of the month. Such news really rose my blood pressure levels and added 10 more points to the scale of how much I do hate administrators and this workplace specifically. This, specifically, is an addition for really disrespecting this place even more. I just wish it is September already and I'm ready to go away from this trash just to smell some fresh air in Ireland.

On the other hand, I've checked out for another appointment for my eyes examination instead of the one which was during Ramadhan and I didn't attend. Even though it could have been in the next week but I told the nurse to put it some time in November. The appointment is supposed to take place on November 16^th. A special date if you ask me!

Source: Amazon

Book-wise, I've finally finished the optics book, which was small and old, but HUGE in its content of information. Of course most of the techniques mentioned in this book are, probably, obsolete by now, but the information mentioned here are nevertheless pretty much valuable. The book is direct and highly technical without much theory. I like such books. That doesn't mean I don't encourage reading theoretical books as well, but too much theory without a real scope on how to use such a theory in a proper and physical manner to be beneficial can almost be in vain.

Source: Amazon

Now, I've moved to the next book on the queue line, Archaeology Essentials. According to the introduction, it seems to be a "student" edition, or the type taught in colleges. Sounds good. I've gone through few pages so far and I like it. It is indeed concerned about Archaeology rather than sociological issues like the last book I've read. That book was somewhat a disappointment. I don't think I can finish this book in just a month, thus I think it will be my companion when I head to Ireland hopefully.

For now, I've stopped my extreme macro experiments. I still do have problems in lighting opaque subjects from the front, and I couldn't come up with a proper solution specially with my slow progress and my lessened attention to this matter. For this reason I've decided to stop it for now and think of some real photography to do in the few coming days, when possible.

My life looks like been punched with one big vacuum in the middle. Missing out some elements which are hard to be found any where, any time soon. All what I'm hoping for for the time being is to have one nice vacation. If someone doesn't feel bright about work, and doesn't feel at home in home, where would one go? I wonder...

Mono, Duo, Tri, Quad!

One third of Ramadhan is gone by now - and things are tightening on my schedules and life pace. I literally spend most of my time sleeping or trying to catch on my sleep; specifically at work! Even though I used to fast before Ramadhan already, Ramadhan becomes an issue. Always.
For this reason, I didn't have much to do with my camera, but I did some experiments eventually and some of them are still on going.

Duo

In the process of doing more studies with the tone splitting technique, I've re-visited a mode provided in Photoshop, along the RGB and CMYK; the Duotone mode.
This mode in fact provides several modes in it: Mono-, Duo-, Tri-, and Quadtone. Each mode provides a specific number of tones to be implied to the image and in that sense, it is a step further from tone splitting. Further more, for each tone, the control of the "amount" of the tone is a bit decisive.

The Duotone mode window in Photoshop. Here, Quadtone is picked from the menu,
allowing for 4 colors to be mixed.

There are some awkward features for this mode of course, like the fact that to convert the image into it, you have to pass by the Grayscale mode first. Thus, converting directly might hinder the user cuffed with the tone distribution before doing Duotone. Probably it would be better to use the Black and White adjustment layer first to control the tones and THEN convert to Grayscale mode - this is if it was necessary of course. It seems, however, that controlling the tones in this mode is actually a control of the levels of "ink" for printing this image itself. This is what I perceived when I did a little research online about this mode. This makes it harder to control, unlike the easy way to do it in the RAW editor or by laying out layers in a Photoshop process - because in this process or in the RAW Editor, the thing under control mainly is the distribution of the tone to highlights and shadows, and its intensity.

Doppelganger
Duotone: Shamrock Green, Black.

One of the interesting features as well is the Overprint Colors, which is somewhat like a control for how to interpret the merging of two tones together. Of course it's going to be a tedious task in case of Quadtone (4 tones) but it's worth the study to gain more perception of what related colors could do. This is a nice instance for using Colors Schemes, which are groups of related colors that can be found and deduced using many websites like ColorHexa and ColorHexCode. Such groups can be, for example, analogous colors, or tetradic colors. The other awkward feature here is that a file done in Duotone cannot be saved in a proper common format, like JPEG or even TIFF. It must be saved in one of Photoshop's own formats like: PSD, PSB, RAW and EPS. Note here that "RAW" is not the conventional camera RAW, but it's Photoshop's RAW format (which I don't exactly know how it works or what is it). EPS is a vector format, while PSD and PSB are the usual conventional Photoshop Document format. Here, Doppelganger, was done in Duotone using a color named Shamrock Green (Hex: #009E60) with Black. To save the image for displaying it here, I had to roll back the mode to RGB and save the image as JPEG. This, I think, produced some artifacts and banding (specially in the background in the blurred green plant area). Controlling the curves of tones for each tone of those was really a rough job to do with delicate observation to see where there are issues of banding and such. That was only for two tones, so imagine the work for a quad!

Luster

My sole work this week with the camera was to give it a try and do some commercial-like shooting for this piece of jewellery which I got for my niece for her coming birthday on the 23^rd. The piece is silver-made and this put on a bit of dilemma on the choice of the white balance to work with.

Right: Flash WB. Left: Fluorescent WB.

Most of the people whom I asked did actually pick the bluish tint. However, one or two persons picked the adjusted or corrected form (i.e. Flash WB) because this shows and emphasizes the blue stone in the middle. They have their point of course. I decided to work with the blue tint but I've found myself working more with the adjusted level because it gives more luster to the metal work and it gives more shine (beside contrasting the blue stone of course).

Close Look
Sigma 70-300mm @180mm,
f/6.3, 250^-1sec, ISO200.

In the beginning I was planning to take a picture of the whole earring, but then I realized that this approach would take up the fine details of the craft done to the silver itself. Thus, I moved on to using a telephoto lens, namely Sigma 70-300mm, with the help of extension tubes to allow me to stay close to the piece (closest focusing distance for this lens is around 1.5m, or around 5 ft). I admit, my work was pretty quick and filled with errors, like not cleaning the piece (you can see the blue stone being dusty little bit). The background is a black cloth (which I got back to do some scanography experiments) and from which I hung the earrings. This background is not suitable but I had nothing better to use; the texture was pretty annoying and could not be removed. A black metallic surface would probably be better.
The work of the speedlites (580EXII and 430EXII) was experimental, and at some point I used the on-camera flash as well to give a frontal light to shine on the blue stone specifically. Not bad I believe, but I didn't achieve still what I was aiming for: a gem sparkle. I think I had here a conflict of interests; a wide aperture to blur the background, while I do need a narrow aperture to achieve a sparkle effect. I gave up that idea anyway. Light from 580EXII was concentrated using a mesh on snoot, while 430EXII was reflected off a shiny surface (car windshield shade). When all was set, I decided to add some light from the front (and the position of the 580EXII with the snoot was changed repeatedly), this was done by the on-camera flash with a slight power. All work was done wirelessly; obviously I was lazy to use some wires here and there! After all, there was no need for it really - it would be essential if I wanted to go beyond the sync speed of 1/250 seconds. Only then, a cord to connect the speedlite and the camera is essential.

Silver x Blue

The interesting experiment was still to come. I decided to go extremely macro and placed 50mm lens with 20mm+36mm tubes. The significance here is that I managed to take 3 images in vertical order and then merge them like a panorama (in PTGui). I'm not sure if I can say it is a macro panorama for this though! Since it was just an experiment, I didn't take the whole jewellery piece into consideration but merely some portion mimicking an abstract sense and feel.
For some time, a software, namely PhotoAcute, is used to process several images to produce on high resolution image (beside other uses). Even though it is still a useful software, but in this process of taking several images with some distance and stitching them, the resolution of the overall image was boosted from 18MP (if we assumed the same framing) to around 26MP, and if I managed to take more shots, I believe it would be boosted more. The only problem with this method is the movement of the camera itself; If things are to be done in a proper manner, something should be automated here or systematized: either the camera movement, or the object itself. In my shot for Silver x Blue, the camera was moved slightly up and down with the use of the central column of the tripod; sluggish movement but did the job. If I was to take more precise images at such macro level, I would probably try to do it in a different way. The final image is composed of 3 shots, with 30 seconds each, and because no speedlites were used here, there was actually some slight green tint caused by the surrounding walls as it seems. Some editing reduced this tint and, again, despite adding a slight blue cast but with contrast and other edits and adjustments, the silver turned almost neutral like before. Glamor effect helped on showing some luster as well. All what is left, is to hope this shot is to be considered for addition into some stock websites!

Twirl

I've been trying, for some time, to study the relation between the rule of thirds and the golden spiral concept in terms of the placement of the "power points" in each system. This is to help me with framing with the camera, which doesn't have a spiral system but only a regular grid and a rule of thirds grid (in its LiveView mode). The main point here is to find a basis for the difference between one power point in one system and the other.
I have to say that I've failed here so far, and probably I have to polish my geometrical concepts a bit; didn't use those much since college days! Anyway, there is one key difference between the two and for which I had to rely on some approximations, and that is: the golden spiral rule depends on a rectangle drawn with the golden ratio (given the symbol φ), while the rule of thirds as it is in the camera, based on the ratio of 3:2. I'm not sure yet what kind of results I'm trying to find out but I'm still working on it and hopefully I can share some thoughts about it!

Finale

I have here some appointments that I guess I have to skip. Clinics should really stop giving appointments in Ramadhan - the schedule is just unbelievable. I think I will re-schedule this appointment (supposedly to be on 13^th) and I hope it won't clash with my travel to Ireland; otherwise, I have to cancel, again!

My reading process is going slowly as well, and despite this book being small, it surely is rich in information! I'm glad I bought this book really. However, it needs some careful reading still to gain a firm understanding of how optics work. Too bad that I can't do the experiments mentioned practically myself, thus I have to depend solely on my imagination for this matter. There is a book about archaeology still waiting for me and, if I was lucky, might take it with me to Ireland to read at any point.

Everything is going slowly here. Needless to say how my life goes as well anyway. Dying to head to Ireland by every single passing day, where I can have some fresh air, and some clear mind and some more photos and nicer weather. The air is getting heavier to breathe here. I get a wave of panic from time to time but no obvious reason but simply like that. It's annoying. It's a killer.

Nacht der Langzeitbelichtungen...

Well, now we are back to the rhythm after two posts about my trip to Failaka; despite the fact that I'm still processing some of the images taken there. But probably the bulk of the images that I really enjoyed taking were already done... till I discover something new though. The B&W processing and tone-splitting sound promising but I do need more time with my images. In the meantime, I'm trying to settle down with time ripples as I'm torn in between two blogs, both of which would require an early preparation to be posted in time. Probably my future posts in this blog would be short (be happy!).

Nacht der Langzeitbelichtungen

I hope dear reader won't consider the title offensive^*. It's just a title that reflects what I've been doing since I got back from Failaka island two weeks ago. I'm trying to do the best I can before the weather gets warmer (than this already); long exposures at night time.

Sky and Earth
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/8(?), 3.5m, ISO100.

My beginnings were shaky. Despite the fact that the low tide timing was perfect for me, because I wanted to go deeper into the sea shelf (the area which is covered in high tide time), yet, the tide was not low enough. To add to my problems, the beach area was not "silent" at 3:30 a.m.!
My first exposure, Sky and Earth, which was for around 4 minutes, came out blank. Not literally blank but out of features. I was hoping to go deeper into the sea shelf specifically to capture more rocks in the foreground, but it wasn't the case here.

Luminatus
Rokinon 8mm fisheye,
f/8(?), HDR, ISO100.

As you can see, because of the time that lapsed when these images, Sky and Earth and Luminatus, were taken, I've completely forgot what was the aperture used back then in this manual lens; but I doubt I've gone further than f/8 (hence "f/8(?)" in the caption). Luminatus, in particular, was shot about 180 degrees to the other side on the shore, away from the first shot Sky and Earth. Now, I have to admit I don't like both shots, but I did shoot after all. I didn't want to go back with empty hands after struggling to the beach at 3 a.m. that day! Some people commented that they like the transition in the horizon line in Sky and Earth, and I might like it a bit because of its minimalistic approach to the seascape, yet, it's not much more than a play of colors; in fact this is all what I depended on here to make this image work a bit. Otherwise, it is one big fail. Luminatus on the other hand was a fail still but with some liking from my side because of the spot-like effect that surrounds the buildings. This is mainly caused by the lights of the buildings themselves which caused a halo effect somehow. The HDR technique (gathered from long exposures) helped a lot here in controlling the range of the halo, but then some work in Photoshop was required. My night was over then and I had to go back to my car on the soft sands, carrying the load!

Extraterrestrial
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/8(?), 8m, ISO100.

The night after was a bit more promising but I have to admit here as well, I didn't expect the results. One of the major differences between an amateur and a professional photographer is the expectation of the final outcome before the work is done. The timing isn't really what I was hoping for because it was close to dawn, and the exposure time, when calculated in the regular way as I usually do, must be shortened than the real calculations; This is because the sun is on rising even though slowly, but it does affect the outcome significantly (in some trials before, the exposure time would be one minute short than calculated to get a proper exposure, or at least a proper histogram distribution).
In theory, when doing long exposure for moving clouds, a cloudy day in fact is not good - this is because the movement would not be so obvious in the sky. The movement won't be noticeable unless there is some spacing in between the clouds. In the meantime, I was thinking: Is it possible to record the movement of a hole in the clouds when a cloudy day? I think I got the answer in Extraterrestrial. I'm not a meteorologist, but it seemed that this place in the sky specifically was like a barrier for the clouds passing through it and hence the lines formed around this specific vacancy. The bright spot in the sky was probably the sun disk which, on location, was completely invisible to the naked eye. Probably this is one of the beauties of doing long exposures: to see the unseen!

Blauentraum
Rokinon 8mm fisheye,
f/8(?), HDR, ISO100.

Just before leaving the place, after observing how much light is shining on the land, I decided to do one last trial, this time for HDR bracketing (and if I remember correctly it was also a series of long exposures). As you may have noticed  in Blauentraum and Extraterrestrial already, I've been using the Fluorescent WB excessively for such time of the day (along with dusk time too). In processing the HDR, I didn't try to do any magic here, but simply eliminate as much as possible the ground of the beach while darkening the sky a bit. The guide line here is not strong, and the only thing I would rely on in this image is the hues and blend of colors. Otherwise, I wouldn't submit this to be judged in a contest!
The coming weeks after that did (and will) witness more long exposure trials but I'll keep these images for later...

* In case the reader is not aware what it means; the title means "night of long exposures"; parallel to the Night of Long Knives (Nacht der Langen Messer), which was a name given to a  series of political murders in the beginnings of the Nazi regime.

Finale

Source: Amazon

 New books now arrived, and I've already started reading it. The new book is a contemplative book somewhat (just like another book I had before) but in a different style somewhat. I do have some list of books that I'm reading already for bedtime (an Agatha Christie novel in Arabic in fact) and at work I'm somewhat busy doing work related to this blog and the other blog, thus reading this book is a challenge for me now. The best I could do for now is to read in between when taking breaks, or when I wait for my fingerprint time before leaving work. The other books are related to Archaeology and principles of optics which I'm also dying to read. The latter specifically looks an old edition; I really didn't check it out! But it doesn't matter as long it gives some basics.

Source: Amazon

On the other hand, I've ordered another flash cable instead of my Vello cord which got broken after some accident. This one (from Pixel) though is cheaper than Vello's. I'm not sure why though, but it works fine and tested it for High-Speed mode on my 580EXII. If it is about the make, then I have to say the Vello is higher in price and yet couldn't stand the fall of a tripod; hence, it wouldn't make a difference for me I guess if I get a cheaper one. After all, I'm not using it excessively for the time being - but that doesn't mean it's not necessary!

This is it for now I guess. I'm not sure I want to talk about work here, because I'm trying to keep myself busy as much as possible just to forget the insults that I see daily in that place. The summer is coming, and the hell is starting to cook my body already. My only condolence is to see students finish off their semester as soon as possible to release some of the jam in this place.
Meanwhile, I do feel guilty though for not doing much work with my Geltani conlang. Two weeks of vacation and yet, I didn't touch it at all and concentrated all my time for photography; it's unfair I guess. Too many things to do, and one body to do them all...