Crop individual layers

[chrisb123]

How do I crop individual layers?
I have a bunch of raw images I'd like to crop out most of the sky and make a collage.
But I cant seem to crop the layer, it crops the entire document

[NotMyFault]

There are many ways:

• create a rectangular shape, and nest it into masking position of the bitmap layer (drag and hold rectangle layer in layer stack, let go at the thumbnail of the bitmap layer). Rectangle can be resized any time to adjust crop.
• optional: rasterize and trim 
• use the rectangle as parent layer, and move bitmap layer into child position. Caution: resizing the rectangle will resize the bitmap layer, unless you activate „lock children“
•  

 

[chrisb123]

Preferably I'd like to keep each layers as raw images.
Also can I make a evenly divided grid of various sizes such as 12 or 9

[chrisb123]

Think I got it

 

[NotMyFault]

Nice Images 👍🏼

 

[chrisb123]

Thanks the images turned out better then what I expected, I couldn't see what the bird was, it moved like a bird of prey so I took some pictures. It's a Harrier.

[chrisb123]

Olympus EM1 Mark III
1120mm 1/640 F9 ISO200
Handheld
Shuttering speed should have been higher

Would a denoise application app?

[NotMyFault]

When I have good daylight, I set exposure to 1/2000 to avoid any motion blur, or even manual 1/2000 and aperture 1/8 for sharpness and consistency between shots, and let the iso chosen by camera to get proper exposure.

When developing in Affinity Photo, keep the RAW files as flat as possible (no denoise, not sharping). You may do some basic denoise.

Then develop and do the rest of editing in Photo Persona.

This allows to treat blue sky and bird totally different. Use a good mask (take your time, may use pen tool to create a perfect vector mask).

• sky: denoise heavy, but to not sharpen. Inpaint distracting areas like lens flare, distant birds, etc

 

• bird: denoise only mildly, and use blend range to limit on lighter pixels. Try which sharpening works best, e.g. unsharp mask, highpass filter
• try using tone map with local contrast (again on birds only) to really bring out details.

For shooting:

take a series of test shots to check if image stabilization (of lens and/or camera) actually helps or not. You. May get sharper images at 1/2000 when IS is off.

[chrisb123]

ISO is 99.9% always set to auto
I set shutter speed based on speed of the bird
F9 because that's the lowest the camera goes at max zoom
Zoom to whatever frame that is needed

I develop all in raw. I usually dont have time to mask out the bird
Don't know what: blend range, tone map and local contrast are, unfamiliar with sharpening methods

I took these on the same day as the Harrier

[NotMyFault]

Nice colorful birds👍🏽

[thomaso]

On 10/2/2023 at 9:10 AM, NotMyFault said:

check if image stabilization (of lens and/or camera) actually helps or not. You. May get sharper images at 1/2000 when IS is off.

Do I assume right, that "sharper" here refers to mechanical IS only, not to software IS?

This reminds me to another question: Why do some sources recommend to disable IS in particular when shooting on a tripod? And again, does this refer to mechanical IS only?

[NotMyFault]

1 minute ago, thomaso said:

 

This reminds me to another question: Why do some sources recommend to disable IS in particular when shooting on a tripod? And again, does this refer to mechanical IS only?

All (except some new ones, see below) Canon and Sigma recommend it in the user manuals, and my tests confirm this. You can see the difference with a 600m lens, e.g. moon shots.

The IS is software controlled. The sw assumes a handheld lens, and tries to proactively correct the movements. Humans induce a certain range of frequencies. On a tripod, you get a totally different set of frequencies and amplitudes, which irritate the IS, and produce more jitter. When IS is activated, it continuously corrects, it never says „ah you holding it steady, i stop the motors“. Similar to continuous autofocus. Another reason is battery drain.

Only most modern IS detect if a lens/camera is tripod mounted and automatically deactivate themselves.

[NotMyFault]

9 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Do I assume right, that "sharper" here refers to mechanical IS only, not to software IS?

Where do you set the demarcation? For me, IS is always a combination of HW (sensors, motors, tilting devices, or newer piezo-electric actuators without classical mechanics), combined with software. I don’t know pure mechanical IS (except like fluid-damped video tripods). 
 

PS has some pure sw based PS (Affinity lacks).

[thomaso]

22 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

On a tripod, you get a totally different set of frequencies and amplitudes, which irritate the IS, and produce more jitter.

Interesting, I would expect that the development of such a feature starts with an ideal value of 0 camera movement and then tries to handle values above 0. So it seems a tripod was simply "forgotten" when coding IS? (… different to the specialized dynamometer "Thermo Fenster" of Diesel engines;)

18 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

I don’t know pure mechanical IS

You are right, I rather meant in difference to pure software IS (I assume it is easier to develop / produce than mechanical IS and thus would possibly exist exclusively in cheaper cameras, – or just in smaller cameras (that may get used together with separate devices with hardware IS) https://gobandit.com/action-camera-image-stabilization/#Electronic_Image_Stabilization_EIS.

[chrisb123]

I thought images looked better with IS on.
Got any suggestion what to photograph to test the sharpness?

[NotMyFault]

You images look great, so no urgency to check this. It is more a geek thing for those who want to experiment and optimize every little bit.

I think the jpeg files could benefit from some of the sharpening methods I mentioned earlier:

1. try adding an unsharp mask filter, with radius in range of 1 to 2 px. This should be applied selectively to the main object (the birds, not the sky) using a suitable mask
2. try adding a highpass filter, with blend mode soft light or linear light. Keep radius small, 1-2.
3. finally, create a pixel layer by merge visible. Then use tone map persona. By default the effect uses unsuitable slider settings. Reduce the strength from 100 to 0, so the image look’s unmodified. Then gradually change local contrast, usually 10-20%. This really boosts small details and color contrast. 
    

 

[chrisb123]