Ask Tim Grey

Today’s Question: Does the Threshold control in Photoshop’s Unsharp Mask filter do the same thing as the Masking control when sharpening in Lightroom?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The Threshold control for Unsharp Mask in Photoshop and the Masking control for sharpening in Lightroom are very similar in terms of the overall concept involved and the results you can expect.

More Detail: As noted in an Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter last week, the Threshold feature of the Unsharp Mask filter in Photoshop enables you to mitigate the effect of sharpening in areas of relatively smooth texture. In short, the Threshold control enables you to set a minimum level of contrast that is required before the Unsharp Mask filter enhances contrast to create a sharpening effect.

The Masking control that is available with the sharpening in both Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom’s Develop module provides a very similar feature. By increasing the value for Masking you are requiring that a certain degree of contrast exist before any additional contrast is added via sharpening. In other words, the Masking control defines a threshold similar to the Threshold control for the Unsharp Mask filter.

The context of the question addressed last week was a comparison of the Unsharp Mask filter compared to the Smart Sharpen filter in Photoshop. If you are applying sharpening in Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom’s Develop module, you can achieve the same basic effect of the Threshold control available for Unsharp Mask by increasing the value for Masking.

Note, by the way, that when increasing the value for Masking in Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom, you can hold the Alt key on Windows or the Option key on Macintosh to see a black-and-white preview of which areas will still be sharpened versus which areas will not be sharpened. With the Alt/Option key held down, when you drag the slider for the Masking slider the preview image will appear white where sharpening is going to be applied and black in areas where sharpening will be blocked.

Today’s Question: I was always taught that the High Pass filter was a superior method of sharpening in Photoshop.  And although I was aware of it, I didn’t use it much.  I only learned recently that with a very small radius and use of the Hard Light mode, I can produce significant, but not overly obvious, sharpening of images with a bit of blur.  What are your thoughts about High Pass? And is there a way to achieve any of these kinds of effective sharpening in Lightroom?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The “High Pass” technique is similar in overall effect to sharpening, depending on the settings used. In general practice it tends to provide more of a midtone contrast enhancement for accentuating detail, rather than a true sharpening effect. Lightroom provides similar options with Clarity and Dehaze.

More Detail: Sharpening involves (in a very general way) enhancing contrast where contrast already exists. In the context of a typical motivation for sharpening, that involves enhancing the contrast for fine details in an image in order to improve the perceived sharpness of the image.

Of course, it is also possible to “expand” that sharpening effect across a larger area so that instead of sharpening fine detail you are enhancing overall midtone contrast, reducing the appearance of haze, and adding impact to the photo in the process. This is really just a variation on a theme when it comes to sharpening.

Because there are different motivations for applying a sharpening effect (among other reasons), there are seemingly countless approaches you can take to improve perceived sharpness, increase the appearance of detail, and reduce the appearance of haze in an image. The “High Pass” technique is one of those.

The High Pass approach to sharpening (or detail enhancement) involves duplicating the Background image layer, changing the blend mode for the duplicate layer to one of the “contrast” options (such as Overlay or Hard Light), and then applying the High Pass filter to that duplicate layer (with a Radius value of somewhere around 10 pixels, though the optimal setting can vary significantly).

This approach can be very beneficial for enhancing overall detail with minimal risk of problematic halos in the image. As such, it is a technique I highly recommend. I would simply add that it isn’t really an alternative to sharpening in most cases, but rather something of a creative effect.

As for Lightroom (or Adobe Camera Raw), you can achieve a very similar effect to the High Pass sharpening technique by using a positive value for the Clarity adjustment, or for the Dehaze adjustment. The Dehaze adjustment is primarily focused on reducing the appearance of haze in a photo, while the Clarity adjustment is more focused on overall midtone contrast and enhancement of texture and detail.

Today’s Question: Why is Lightroom better than Camera Raw for pre-Photoshop processing?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Lightroom is not “better” than Camera Raw when it comes to processing the initial RAW captures before performing additional work in Photoshop. In fact, both will produce the exact same results.

More Detail: This question was in response to a question from an Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter last week, in which I discussed the percentage of images I send to Photoshop from Lightroom. What I was really addressing there was how important Photoshop is for processing my images. Recently, with improvements in Lightroom, I’ve found that I’m using Photoshop less and less.

The context of my answer related to the fact that I use Lightroom to manage my library of photographic images, and therefore I use the Develop module in Lightroom as the initial basis of optimizing the appearance of my photos.

That said, if you are not a Lightroom user, then you could substitute Adobe Camera Raw for Lightroom in terms of initial processing of your RAW captures. Both Lightroom and Camera Raw share the same processing engine, so you will find the same adjustment controls with both, and you can expect the same results with both assuming the same settings for all adjustments.

So, when it comes to overall image quality and the specific results you can expect, you can think of Camera Raw (in Photoshop) and the Develop module in Lightroom as being equal. The only real question is what workflow makes the most sense from an organizational standpoint, which in turn will impact your workflow for optimizing your photos.

Today’s Question: I’m interested in using Lightroom, but after years of using Bridge as an entry into Photoshop, I like and much prefer to maintain the file system I’ve set up in Bridge for my images. How do I do keep the Bridge file system while using Lightroom?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can absolutely maintain the organizational structure and workflow you’ve defined in Adobe Bridge after you transition to Lightroom. You just need to make sure that you stop actually using Bridge once you switch to Lightroom.

More Detail: Many photographers seem to misunderstand the role Lightroom plays in your workflow, in large part because Lightroom employs a catalog rather than serving as a simple image browser.

The first thing that I think photographers should understand about Lightroom is that the Lightroom catalog is simply a reflection of your existing folder-based organizational structure. Lightroom also enables you to view (and update) the metadata you may have added through other applications such as Bridge.

The process of transitioning from Adobe Bridge to Adobe Lightroom is incredibly simple. Let’s assume you have stored all of your photos on a single external hard drive with a folder structure that suits your needs, and that you’ve been using Adobe Bridge to browse those images and update the metadata as appropriate.

To get started with Lightroom you could simply import all of your photos. With a new catalog in Lightroom you can choose the Import feature. Then set the source of the import to the external hard drive, and make sure the option to include all subfolders is enabled. With the “Add” option set at the top-center of the Import dialog, you can then click the Import button to initiate the process.

Once this import is complete your entire library of photos can be viewed within your Lightroom catalog. The entire folder structure for those photos will be visible in the Folders section of the left panel in the Library module, and all of the metadata for those photos can be found on the right panel in the Library module.

The important thing at this point, however, is to stop using Adobe Bridge altogether, and instead use Lightroom as the starting point for every task you need to perform with your images.

If you want to make sure you completely understand Lightroom, including help on configuring Lightroom to best suit your needs, you might be interested in my bundle of video courses on Adobe Lightroom, which you can find here:

http://timgrey.me/atgmess

Today’s Question: Perhaps this is just a curiosity, but I wonder what percentage of your images you send to Photoshop versus processing completely in Lightroom.

Tim’s Quick Answer: At this point in terms of image optimization the majority of my photos are processed exclusively within Lightroom, with fewer than ten percent being sent to Photoshop for optimization. Put simply, with each new update to Lightroom I’m finding less need to employ the power of Photoshop.

More Detail: As many of my longtime readers know, I’ve been a big fan of Photoshop for a very long time. Many may have noticed that it also took me a little while to fully embrace Lightroom as the cornerstone of my workflow. As the Develop module in Lightroom has improved over the years, I’ve also gradually shifted my workflow to focus more on Lightroom and much less on Photoshop.

To be sure, I still employ Photoshop for difficult challenges. Of course, as I’ve improved my photographic workflow over the years, I have fewer and fewer “difficult” images. But there are situations where I need the additional power of Photoshop to make the most of a photo.

For the most part the reasons I employ Photoshop are to perform sophisticated image cleanup and to apply precise targeted adjustments. While Lightroom includes tools for both of these tasks, they are not as powerful or flexible as what is available in Photoshop.

As much as I love the power of Photoshop, and as much as I love exercising incredible control over my photos, I also appreciate having a workflow that is as streamlined as possible. Therefore, since I use Lightroom as the foundation of my workflow, I try to leverage Lightroom for as much of my work as possible. I only employ other tools when there is a clear advantage beyond what Lightroom is capable of.

Today’s Question: You said, “in some cases it may be preferred to use the Unsharp Mask filter instead” [in yesterday’s Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter]. Why would you ever choose Unsharp Mask over Smart Sharpen in Photoshop?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The primary reason you might choose to use the Unsharp Mask filter rather than Smart Sharpen in Photoshop is to avoid adding the appearance of noise in smooth areas. While the Smart Sharpen filter is relatively “smart” in this regard, it is lacking the Threshold control that is available with the Unsharp Mask filter.

More Detail: I often describe sharpening as a process for adding contrast where contrast already exists. For example, texture in a photo is created by variations in pixel values. Sharpening involves enhancing those variations to create greater contrast and therefore a stronger appearance of sharpness.

While that sharpening effect is generally a very good thing, it can also cause smooth areas to appear a bit noisy. Even smooth areas will generally have some degree of variations among individual pixel values, and sharpening will exaggerate that fine texture to some extent.

The Smart Sharpen filter generally does a pretty good job in this regard, but it can still fail to protect smooth areas as much as is possible with the Unsharp Mask filter.

As a general rule I use the Smart Sharpen filter in Photoshop to apply sharpening to my images. However, when the image includes very smooth areas (such as a clear sky) that I want to preserve, I’ll scrutinize those areas when previewing the Smart Sharpen effect. If the result is problematic, I’ll cancel and switch to the Unsharp Mask filter.

With the Unsharp Mask filter, increasing the value for the Threshold setting will prevent the sharpening effect from being applied to areas with very minor variations in tonal values. In most cases a value of around 8 or so for Threshold will mitigate the sharpening effect adequately in smooth areas. You can start there and fine-tune as needed so that sharpening is applied where it is needed but does not create problems in smooth areas of your photos.

Today’s Question: Is it true that sharpening can create color artifacts in photos? If so, is there a way to avoid this issue in Photoshop?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, sharpening can create artifacts similar to color noise. You can compensate for this issue in Photoshop by using the Fade command in conjunction with the Luminosity blend mode.

More Detail: There are actually a couple of approaches you could use to prevent or compensate for the appearance of colored artifacts caused by applying a sharpening filter to an image. For example, some photographers convert the image to the Lab color mode and then apply sharpening to the “L” (luminance) channel.

In general I find it is simpler and easier to use the Luminosity blend mode in conjunction with the Fade command. This command can be used immediately after you have applied sharpening.

The first step, of course, is to apply sharpening to your image. I generally recommend the Smart Sharpen filter in Photoshop for this purpose, but in some cases it may be preferred to use the Unsharp Mask filter instead.

Once you’ve applied the desired sharpening to the image, go to the Edit menu and choose the Fade command. Note that this menu item will include the name of the filter you just applied, such as “Fade Smart Sharpen”.

When you select the Fade command, the Fade dialog will appear. The “normal” use of this command is to reduce the strength of the effect you most recently applied. In the case of sharpening you would generally not want to use that option, and so you would keep the Opacity setting at the maximum value of 100%.

However, in this case you do want to change the behavior of the sharpening filter you used, so you can change the blend mode to “Luminosity” using the Mode popup. This blend mode will cause the sharpening filter effect to only adjust the luminance values in the image, not the color values. The result is to mitigate any color variations that may have been introduced by sharpening.

The color variations introduced by sharpening are generally at the individual pixel level, and are not typically too extreme. However, for an image that is being printed at a large size, or for which sharpening creates visible color variations that appear as color noise especially along high contrast edges, the color artifacts can be a problem. Fortunately, the Luminosity blend mode applied through the use of the Fade command provides an excellent solution.

Today’s Question: I shoot in RAW, use Lightroom to edit my photos, but don’t want to be dependent either on my Lightroom catalog or even on the Lightroom application to access my photos. I import my RAW captures into Lightroom, make my desired edits, and then export both JPEG and DNG files (checking the “Embed Original Raw File” and unchecking the “Use Lossy Compression” options when exporting the DNG file). I then delete the original RAW file.

I can now print from or make additional edits to my image using the DNG file on any computer in any application that supports the DNG file format without needing to access either my Lightroom catalog or even the Lightroom application, and I am dependent neither on my Lightroom catalog nor even on the Lightroom application.

So if I decide tomorrow to never use Lightroom again, or if Adobe decides suddenly to discontinue Lightroom, I can continue to access all my images in any application that supports DNGs.

Should I abandon this process, and act more normally?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I recommend changing your workflow to make the most of all Lightroom has to offer while at the same time ensuring that your workflow is not completely dependent on Lightroom. I also don’t think it is necessarily a good idea to delete the original RAW capture files.

More Detail: I assume you are creating JPEG images to provide a “backup” copy of images that includes the adjustments you’ve applied within Lightroom. I don’t think this is necessary, and including this step in your workflow greatly increases the time and storage space required to accommodate those additional image files. I just see this as unnecessary clutter, in other words. If you get to the point that you can’t (or won’t) use Lightroom in your workflow, you could create copies of all existing images with a single export process at that point.

I’m also not entirely comfortable deleting the original RAW capture files. That is part of the reason I have not adopted the Adobe DNG file format as part of my workflow. But if you prefer to convert to DNG files and delete your originals it is reasonably safe to do so as long as you have confirmed that the DNG files are readable and have been backed up securely.

Frankly, if you’re not going to use Lightroom as the foundation of your full workflow for managing your photos, it might make more sense to find some other software you’re more comfortable with. However, I do think it is smart to avoid becoming too dependent on Lightroom.

Fortunately, with Lightroom it is relatively easy to adopt a workflow where you can leverage what Lightroom has to offer without creating a situation where it is very difficult to transition away from Lightroom at a later date. Photographers who adopted Apple Aperture for their image-management workflow, for example, can greatly appreciate the challenge involved in transitioning away from one software tool to another.

I recommend that you define a workflow that revolves around standard metadata fields, and then saving metadata updates to the image files themselves.

For example, instead of using collections in Lightroom as a key foundation of your organizational workflow, you might want to employ keywords. That way the keywords you add can still be available to any other image-management software you might use at a later date.

To save metadata to the image files on the hard drive, you can select all images in your Lightroom catalog and then choose Metadata > Save Metadata to Files from the menu. You can also have metadata updates saved to your files automatically by turning on the “Automatically write changes into XMP” checkbox in the Catalog Settings dialog (found on the Lightroom menu on Macintosh or the Edit menu on Windows).

My overall strategy involves retaining the original capture format from the camera, using a workflow that focuses on updating standard metadata fields (such as star ratings and keywords) rather than Lightroom-specific features (such as pick/reject flags and collections). I save the metadata to the files automatically, and also try to maintain an awareness of the current state of software so I can anticipate any issues that might require me to alter my workflow.

Today’s Question: In Photoshop, is there a way to copy a portion of the image, and then “flip it” (left to right) for pasting elsewhere in the original image?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, indeed. You can simply create a selection of the desired area, create a new layer based on a copy of the selected area, flip horizontally or vertically with the Transform commands, and then use the Move tool to move the new layer into the desired position.

More Detail: It is quite easy to duplicate a portion of a photo and then flip that new layer and move it into a new position. One common use of this capability is a “mirror image” technique, which can be quite interesting. You can see a sample image I created using this technique on my Instagram feed here (be sure to follow me!):

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKSZZ0OA3l3/

The basic process is very straightforward. Start by creating a selection of the area you want to duplicate and flip. In the example image above, that would involve a rectangular selection of one-half of the image. You can then copy the selected pixels to a new layer by choosing Layer > New > Layer Via Copy from the menu (or by pressing Ctrl+J on Windows or Command+J on Macintosh).

To flip this new layer you can simply choose Edit > Transform from the menu, followed by either Flip Horizontal or Flip Vertical based on the direction you wish to flip. With the sample image linked above the Flip Horizontal command was selected.

You can then use the Move tool to move the new layer to a different location within the image. In the case of the “mirror image” technique, for example, I would have selected and duplicated the right half of the image, flipped the layer horizontally, and then moved the new layer to the left half of the image. But of course you could move the new layer to any position you’d like within the image. If for any reason you need to drag the new layer to a position that falls outside the existing image area, you can simply choose Image > Reveal All from the menu to enlarge the canvas so you can see the entire image area.

For readers who subscribe to my Pixology magazine, you can find more details about this technique in the article “Step by Step: Mirror Image”, featured in the August 2016 issue.

Today’s Question: I remember the time that you were very happy with Nik Software, and recommend it with pleasure. I want to sign up for a Photoshop Creative Cloud subscription. Info on the web informs me that difficulties will rise using Photoshop CC and the Nik plug-ins. Can you tell us whether we should be concerned that the Nik Collection will stop working with Photoshop?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I think there is most certainly a reason to be concerned that the Nik Collection will no longer function well in the near future, and to begin looking for alternative solutions if you are currently using any of the tools in the Nik Collection.

More Detail: The Nik Collection is a set of software and plug-ins that were originally released by Nik Software, which was acquired by Google in 2012. Originally the suggestion was that there would not be any future updates with new features, there would be updates to ensure that these software tools continued to function with operating system and host application updates.

However, more recently Google has updated the page for the Nik Collection (https://www.google.com/nikcollection/) to indicate that no future updates of any kind will be released. The existing Nik Collection (which is still available as a free download) will only function properly with Mac OS X through version 10.10, Windows through version 8, and Adobe Photoshop through version CC 2015.

I have run into some minor issues with several of the software tools in the Nik Collection, and suspect those problems will only increase with future updates to Photoshop and the operating systems.

I will be providing more details on recommended replacements for the various tools in the Nik Collection. In the short term I know many photographers are particularly interested in options for creating high dynamic range (HDR) images. I have found that Adobe Lightroom’s built-in feature for HDR assembly works very well, and that Aurora HDR 2017 is also an excellent solution. Keep in mind that Aurora HDR 2017 is currently only available for Macintosh users, but Macphun Software has indicated that a Windows version will be coming soon.

I will provide more recommendations in the future related to replacement recommendations for the Nik Collection.