Month: May 2019

Today’s Question: I’ve tried to use the new Enhance Details option in Lightroom Classic, and it doesn’t seem to do anything to the photos I’ve tested it with. Has this been your experience?

Tim’s Quick Answer: My experience has been similar, in that the testing I’ve conducted shows the effects of the new Enhance Details option in Lightroom Classic CC does not have a significant impact on overall detail levels in the photo.

More Detail: When I read the description of the new Enhance Details feature in Lightroom Classic CC, I was certainly intrigued. I set about performing a quick test, which revealed virtually no visible change in the image after using Enhance Details.

I then started searching for images that I thought might benefit from Enhance Details, testing each in turn. When you process a raw capture with Enhance Details, a new Adobe DNG file is created, with the effect applied to that DNG. This leaves the original raw capture unaltered. For the numerous photos I tested, I then loaded the “before” and “after” images into Photoshop as layers, so I could more easily test the results.

I zoomed in on various areas of the photos I was using for testing, and switched between the original raw capture and the DNG that had Enhance Details applied. While I could see some minor variation in pixel values in some areas of some of the test images, the result wasn’t what I would refer to as having had the details enhanced.

In a couple of cases the results were actually a little bit worse with Enhance Details applied, with some very minor color artifacts appearing (and some detail being reduced) in the version of the image with Enhance Details applied.

I think the concept of the Enhance Details adjustment is very interesting, and I’m sure the feature will be improved over time. In the meantime, I’m taking a “wait and see” approach to see if at some point in the future the Enhance Details feature might become an important part of my workflow.

In the meantime, however, my experience suggests it is not worthwhile to create an additional version of your source capture just to take advantage of the new Enhance Details feature. Hopefully that will change with a future update.

Today’s Question: I now have a bunch of downloaded new photos, each with a red label from using my ‘preset import’ for adding a red label. Then I go through them all my downloaded images and assign a 1-star rating to those with potential. When that’s done, does that mean that I can delete/remove all the remaining red label images?

Tim’s Quick Answer: In concept, yes, once you have identified your best photos from a given photo shoot, you can delete the outtakes. Of course, you’ll want to consider whether you actually want to delete your outtakes, versus simply using a filter to hide those outtakes from view when you want to review only your favorite photos.

More Detail: During one of my recent presentations as part of the GreyLearning Webinar Series, I presented my workflow for making sure I review every photo when identifying my favorite images from a given trip or photo shoot. You can view a recording of the full presentation on my “Tim Grey TV” channel on YouTube here ( https://youtu.be/2I73Eq2r7E8 ):

One of the techniques I use to make sure I review every photo is to add a color label to all photos upon import, marking the images as needing to be reviewed. After reviewing a batch of photos and assigning star ratings to my favorites, I can remove the red color label from those photos, so I know all of the images were reviewed.

At that point, any images that have been reviewed but don’t have a star rating assigned to them can be assumed to be outtakes. At that point, assuming you’re confident in your review process, you could delete all photos that have already been reviewed (those that don’t have a red color label in my workflow) and that don’t have a star rating assigned to them.

Of course, you’ll also want to consider whether you want to delete the photos, or keep them in your catalog and instead use filters to view only images with star ratings assigned to them when you want to work with only your favorite photos from a trip or photo shoot.

Today’s Question: After photographing with my iPhone I would like to post-process the image in Photoshop. The only way I know to do this is to export the image from Apple’s Photos application which gives me two options: “Unmodified Original” or simply as JPEG, TIFF, or PNG. Which do you recommend if extensive post-processing is intended? The unmodified file was JPG at 1.8 MB and the TIFF file was 34MB, but all other characteristics were the same, such as pixel dimension, and color mode.

Tim’s Quick Answer: In this type of scenario I suggest exporting as a TIFF image, since you will likely want to save the final result from Photoshop with various layers intact. Also note that choosing a file format rather than “Unmodified Original” will also ensure that adjustments you’ve applied in Photos will be included as part of the exported image.

More Detail: In this scenario the original capture was a JPEG image, rather than the newer HEIC format or an Adobe DNG file (such as for images captured using the Lightroom CC mobile app). That means you are starting out with 8-bit per channel data, and pixel data that has been compressed to reduce file size. In other words, you aren’t starting out with an image that was optimized for image quality.

In concept that means you could continue working with a JPEG image, since that is what you started with. However, applying significant adjustments and possibly re-opening the image several times to make revisions can have a further negative impact on image quality.

If you are going to process a JPEG capture there isn’t a significant benefit to converting to the 16-bit per channel mode, because you have already started with 8-bit per channel data. However, you will likely want to take advantage of adjustment layers and perhaps additional image layers in Photoshop, which would require a TIFF or PSD file format.

In addition, converting to something other than a JPEG image will ensure you are applying additional image compression when the image is modified and re-saved. That additional compression can further degrade overall image quality.

So, since you would likely want to save the final result as a layered image in Photoshop, to me it makes sense to convert to a TIFF file right from the point of exporting the image from the Photos app. Note, however, that you can choose to have that TIFF image in the 8-bit per channel bit depth, which will provide a TIFF image that is half the size it would be in the 16-bit per channel mode.