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unni

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Everything posted by unni

  1. The specimen was not a live one. It was very small, something like a rice grain. Shot inside the house, so no wind issues. Holding the specimen and getting the right view in the camera is time consuming. Some form of manipulator arm will help. Using small needles, super glue etc may be required. Moving the camera in very small step without any axial or rotational error is very important. Linear bearing tables of 4 inch sizes with verniers can be used. They are relatively expensive if new. So I went for a milling machine table which is very robust but bulky and very heavy. Flash with diffuser in manual mode is a must to freeze any motion induced blur from shutter, etc. Around 1/32 power is sufficient as flash will be very close to subject.
  2. Hi john, The sample image is the first one of the stack. Sample image uploaded is as-is, opened and saved as jpg using fastone image viewer. So it looks dull and smeared. The camera moves forward by approx 8 microns per image. I have used a small milling machine table on which the camera is placed. On the handle of the table, a large disk of 10 inches dia is attached. The disk is pasted with a graduated print out from 0 to 360. Due to the large dia, rotating the disk through each division is easy. One division rotation will give me 8.5 microns. This depends on the pitch of the table worm gear. The table is about 5 kgs and approx 6 inch square. I just keep it on the dining table or somewhere else when taking the photos. A small scissor bench lab jack is used to keep the specimen. Fotidox extension tube combination is used to get the correct distance between the objective and camera flange as I do not use the infinity objective. The setup is so solid that there is no room for even the slightest vibration. One or two flash is used to light up.
  3. very true! the symmetry, proportions and perfection is all there, howmuch ever we zoom in.
  4. I am adding another image made with AP Focus stacking . @John Rostron Subject: A very small moth with total head size less than 1mm. Stack: 160 images Lens: Microscope objective-PLAN Achromat-10X Magnification Camera: Nikon D3100 Field of view : 2.5mm x 1.5mm Software: Only Affinity Photo used. Remarks: The performance and rendering of AP is very good. The halo and general quality is related to original image. Use of an APO objective will make the image much better. No special care has been taken during shooting . The shooting setup is completely homebrew and not commercial macro rails which has electronic controls and stepper motors. Note: To view full size, please click on the image. When a + sign cursor appears, click again to open the image in a new window. In the new window, press once again. The image will go full size and cursor will become - . Pressing again will bring back to "fit in window size". Its a toggle. For giving an idea on the DOF, one image of the stack is below.
  5. Thanks,john. yes,the diff limit would be in around f8. This is an earlier stack of 2015. I now keep the f between 8 and 13 for this lens after examining test shots for optimal f. The overlap of focus is kept around 50 to 20% while shooting and then I eliminate in-between images from stack before stacking if needed. The work flow is mostly that is followed for images taken when using microscope objectives where the dof is a few microns. in this case, alternate images could be skipped but some of the near horizontal elements will show blotches. From this result I expect very good results for stacks of 150. I have to understand how AP will respond to such high stack numbers due to buffer load when using 16 bit and 8 bit space, processing time etc. In case of issues, I plan to bring in Rawtherapee for batch processing and ImageJ for aligning before using AP for final processing of aligned stack. Maybe tonight I get time to try out !
  6. My first test on focus stack. The speed of processing was impressive since the working space was set to prophoto-16 bit. It took only a few minutes to complete 25 images alignment and stacking. To compare, one single frame and the final stacked image are enclosed. Only minimal editing (curves and USM) is done on the stack. The output is very good. Soon I will be testing with 70 to 160 images taken with microscope objectives. Camera- Nikon D3100, Lens Tamron 90mm Macro, f18, 1/3 sec, ISO 200. This is the final stack. The image below is one of the 25 frames.
  7. @R C-R @Granddaddy@firstdefence@John Rostron@walt.farrell Granddaddy's feedback made me think of re-installing windows 7. I formatted C drive and made a fresh install of the OS. Now the issue is gone ! AP loads in about 4 to 5 sec without internet and it takes about 7 or 8 sec with internet connected. So AP was probably not getting the required responses from the Operating system or its services related to internet.
  8. @R C-R : Normally, most programs have an update option in the "preferences" section. I would prefer a similar method and probably an aditional entry under "help" or "about" on the main screen where we can click "check for updates". @Granddaddy: The faster loading observed may be due to different servers catering to different locations of the world, Windows 10 , SSD etc.
  9. Thanks for the clarifications. I am not a software engineer but I feel the method of checking should be in background with minimal wait. Software updates and new welcome page data are released once in a few weeks or months whereas software is loaded by a user multiple times a day. So waiting ten times the actual loading time everytime AP is started is an opportunity for improvement. I timed again - it takes 45 sec mostly, as against the 5 sec without net. @firstdefence : When the network internet access icon at bottom right of screen is disabled with right click, loading takes only 5 sec. I tried in Windows firewall and Avast webshield but no effect.
  10. I use a win 7 system with 8GB RAM, core i3 cpu and fibernet connection at 95Mbps speed. When the ethernet cable is removed from D-link router, Affinity photo loads up in 4 to 5 seconds. When the cable is connected, it takes from 20 sec to 60 sec to load. It appears that AP checks something in the internet everytime before it loads, if a connection is available. If this check is done after loading, then this delay may not be present. There is no issue with my system or net connection as all other programs, high bandwidth video streaming, etc work well without delays and interruptions.
  11. Good shot with details but composition could have had the full flower included. Shooting at f8 will give more depth of field. It has to be compensated by reducing speed and therefore use of manual external flash with a soft diffuser. Flash will have to be held with hand quite close to subject (about 6 inches to 12 inches approx). Flash will eliminate hand held related and subject motion blur completely. The color noise in the background can be removed by layer based editing of a duplicate layer. Then use a black mask and brush in the noise removed section by painting with a white brush on the mask. Similarly sharpen one layer and brush-in by painting on its mask only those portions where sharpened details are required. In the image, I would brush-in only in-focus portion of the bee and junction between the flower and the base. That brown straw can be cloned away fully or atleast the easier part of it.
  12. During processing, I wanted to bring out the range of tones in the clouds along with its subtle orange color patches. In RGB color space, the results were not so good. So the complete processing was done in LAB. In the develop persona, tone curve and noise correction was disabled. In shadows and Highilights, Highlights slider was brought to -100%.Then brightness, blackpoint and exposure was slightly changed. Clicked "Develop" and image was brought to Photo persona. Document color space was changed from RGB to LAB. First applied Filters>noise>Dust&Scratches to the A&B channels for removing the color noise.Then denoise applied in L Channel. Now From Adjustment tab, Curves was selected. In panel, LAB was selected. Then Lightness. Adjusted the curve to increase the contrast and bring out the desired effect on the clouds.This made the foreground and buildings very dark but it was ignored(mask will be used later).Then adjust the A channel to bring out the orange and golden shades in the clouds. B channel was not adjusted.Now make a mask which has white color for the clouds and black for the remaining foreground. Initially itself, after denoise, the layer was duplicated. Now the second layer was selected and curves was adjusted in the L channel and A channel giving importance only to the building, road, trees,grass (ignore clouds). The mask selects the clouds from the first layer and rest of image was from second layer. Merge all layers , convert back to RGB color space and export. The file was exported to JPG full size. I used RIOT standalone free software for downsizing to 1800 pixels because AP downsized JPG file looked little blurred. AP shows no quality problem when exported to JPG in full size. Picture shot in Nikon D3100 at 400ISO, 18mm kit lens, 1/80sec and f4.5. Due to the low f number, the sharpness is not so good. LAB color space was able to keep the clouds and other neutral areas grey whereas RGB makes it slightly bluish. The grass also has good green color.
  13. I am also looking towards when this will get implemented. It is very much desired for precise adjustment of nodes. In Lab Color space, the precision is required when one wants the top and bottom points of the curve moved inwards exactly the same amount.
  14. I was able to see two options in the EDIT>PREFERENCE>Grayscale color Profile. One is Generic gray gamma 2.2 profile and the other GreyscaleD50. After some edits, the file was saved in .afphoto format. When I open the file again after exiting, the above two options are still available. However, for all new files, I am able to see only one option which is Greyscale D50. Without opening any file also, now only one option is seen in EDIT>PREFERENCE>Grayscale Color Profile. I opened the same saved .afphoto file in the stable purchased version 1.6.4.104. In that also, two options are coming . However, I have never seen two options in the purchased version and tried with multiple RAW files but only one option is seen. Thought of giving this feedback.
  15. I have d3100 and have not observed issues specific to camera/AP combination. The histogram is towards left but the three clipping buttons show correct clipping status.i enable these buttons as appropriate while adjusting various sliders and ensure there is no clipping.its more precise.other decisions on sliders area taken based on how the image looks while adjusting.
  16. After returning back to AP, color is okay. It seems to be color management related, sure it will get addressed sometime in the future releases.
  17. using old version NIK which is free. i shall check in more detail on whether its fine on return to AP, tomorrow. (its midnight in india now!). yes, if its okay on returning to AP, shift does not matter. viveza, i am yet to try. thank you for the immediate response.
  18. From Photo Persona, selected Nik Collection plugin for RAW Sharpening. When photo is opened in NIK screen, the color is slightly different for cases where working color space selected in AP was Prophoto or AdobeRGB. When sRGB was selected as working color space in AP, the NIK screen showed same color without any difference. AP Photo persona screen shows same color whether Prophoto or AdobeRGB or sRGB color space is selected.(This is correct and as expected) Original color profile in camera raw is AdobeRGB. The same may be the case for any other pugins. Thought of giving this feedback. affinity screen before taking to NIK sharpener plugin sRGB selected in AP - NIK Screen image below adobeRGB selected in AP - NIK Screen image below Prophoto selected in AP - NIK Screen image below
  19. This is my first try on a panorama. The AP software is doing a wonderful job. One image is just after the stitching of 5 RAW images without any corrections. The other one is processed. I have used the warp tool to correct the distortion . After warp, went back to develop persona for lens distortion option for further correction. Then inpainting to remove the central drum and house on the right side. Unsharp mask for sharpening and luminosity mask used for curves adjustment of some dark areas of the palace. Camera is Nikon D3100, 1/100 sec, f8, ISO 100, hand held, kit lens 18-55. The palace is built sometime in 1750 and name Krishnapuram Palace, Ochira, Kerala, India. The pond extends into the middle of the palace from the underground. Wiki gives more details. The image below is processed. The image below is not processed. Only stitched.
  20. @firstdefence Thanks for the appreciation. I had it in mind when the edit was started but forgot to straighten it. There are some other flaws too due to impatience with fine tuning the mask. Sometime soon I will put out a similar blending method video so that anyone interested in using LM can get some inputs. I have never made videos so far. I mean the capturing of the desktop screen process in realtime and making a video. So have to learn that first. I feel mastering masks is an important aspect in getting a good final image.
  21. @ianrb I have quickly tried blend ranges which is a powerful feature. It is different from LM though in many situations, it can serve similar purpose. LM aids in slowly building up masks and one can target specific areas precisely. The mask can be made visible. By proper brushing with low flow values and using overlay modes, jagged edges can be smoothened. Different selections can be 'painted-in' into existing masks. The final picture will look natural as a single entity without detectable problems in transition areas. In AP, masks have to be converted to pixel layer for brush overlay to work. With a slightly different workflow when compared to PS, we can work using luminosity masks in AP which is a very notable plus point.
  22. Ganna: I also wanted to get adjustments done on mask . Tried suggestions given by Smadell in the last paragraph of his thread above. During trials I noted that clicking the composite alpha under channels tab (right bottom) shows the preview of the adjustment layer effect on the mask layer.(Ensure that visibility of all other pixel and mask layers are turned OFF because the composite RGB channels and composite alpha combines data from all visible layers) For the curves adjustment layer, if you have selected the Alpha from pop up menu instead of Master, then when you change the curve, the b&w preview of the mask layer changes. Once you are okay with the adjustment, keep cursor on composite alpha icon on channels and right click. Select "create spare channel" from pop up. Then go up to the layers panel and select the mask layer. come back to spare channel and right click. There will be an option in popup "Load to mask alpha". Select that. Now your old mask will be replaced with the curves adjusted data. Always deselect any marching ants by going up to Select>Deselect because if selections are active sometimes things don't work. This may sound complicated but its a question of patiently understanding how AP works. I need to do more such experiments to understand further details. Once one gets comfortable with these routes, it will be easy to make an efficient workflow. The route between pixel and mask lies in the channels menu through composite alpha/mask alpha/pixel selection/spare channel and also Rasterize to mask under Layers (top middle). The right click options of the icons under channels also has to be selected properly.
  23. Hello Smadell, I am finding your luminosity mask macros very useful. Its the only solution available for luminosity mask related work using AP. Many thanks for this contribution. I made my first manual exposure blending using your macros and it is posted in th "share your work" today.
  24. I'm new to AP and bought it two weeks back. Spent some hours on seeing the tutorials. Went through Luminosity masks (forum topic: /topic/27214-luminosity-masks , by Smadell ) and tried various methods for painting-in the selections onto masks, aligning multiple exposures, etc. Today I attempted exposure blending of two photos. The workflow is as follows. Individually processed the two photos for exposure, white balance and slight color enhancements. Saved as tif. Then opened both photos from FILE>NEW STACK. selected "scale, rorate and translate" in the pop-up. Then ungrouped the stack. Now the two pictures are aligned and available as two pixel layers. Used "luminosity visualization" macro on one layer to select a proper mask. Decided on L4. Then from macro "Luminosity selections" , loaded L4 into a mask for the top layer. Did some brushing with white/black color and various flow/hardness levels to make the mask for smooth transition between the layers. I am posting the final result and the two unprocessed raw files(in jpg). Lancos non-separable was used for jpg export. Color space used in AP for all editing is Pro-photo RGB. Picture taken with Nikon D3100, kit lens 18-55, tripod, ND64 filter, f11. Bright shot taken at 30 sec, dark at 6 sec. ISO 100. First image is the final blended image and the last two are the un-processed input images used as layers.
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